Technology Integration Specialist Field Guid: Strategy #5 - Show your vulnerabilities

In a previous Twitter Book Club post I discussed four strategies I believe work well for working with teacher professional development where the goal is to bring teachers from assimilation to accommodation of new learning, something I believe is extremely necessary with technology integration. I believe I have stumbled upon a fifth and powerfully effective strategy to add to this list. This strategy will also probably work for anyone working with others to deliver professional development in a coaching setting but it seems to be especially relevant for tech integration since many teachers are often reluctant to come ask for help for any number of reasons. To explain this strategy let me tell you about how I came to it.

Last April I bought a used car that doesn't have automatic headlights. It is the first car I have owned since I began driving in 1992 that didn't have this now basic feature. So far this has not been a huge problem. The length of the days in the summertime mean that I rarely need to use them on my to or from work. However, now that the days are starting to get shorter it is dark enough when I leave my house in the morning that I need them on and my drive is long enough that by the time I get to work I have long past the time when I need them. Consequently, since school started there have been four times when I forgot to shut off my lights after I parked my car and went into work. By noon my battery is drained and I need help jump-starting my car.

It seems like it is always a little bit embarrassing to ask someone to help you jump-start your car, especially when you know the reason is because of your own absent-mindedness. You have to put your tail between your legs and ask someone to help you fix your own mess. In my case the people I asked help from, at least for three of these four times, were people who I had not yet built a strong collegiate relationship with. Asking for help and then receiving it is a bonding experience between both parties. Since these bonding experiences I have noticed the people who helped me have been more likely to approach me at school with problems they have with technology or to ask for suggestions for how they might improve something they are doing in their class. They have also been more comfortable with me coming into their classrooms and assisting them with their classes or even just observing them teach.

I don't know why this never occurred to me before as a necessary strategy to use. In fact, I don't know that it would necessarily work if these were not authentic situations where I needed help. I used to use this strategy all the time when I taught at-risk learners at an alternative learning center. In that setting I saw a disproportionate number of students who for one reason or another had built a wall between them and those in authority, especially those who represented "schooly" authority like teachers and principals. I always found that to reach these kids I had to show them a little bit of my vulnerable side, I had to ask them for help with something. Usually, once removing my teacherly authoritative facade they removed theirs and often they became model students in my classroom. In fact, thinking back on every year I taught art in the face-to-face classroom this was the case.

Given the fact that among sectors of the economy education ranks last in its use of technology and so many teachers report being uncomfortable with it, maybe it makes sense to think of teachers as "at-risk" learners. Maybe, on this topic, it makes sense to apply some "at-risk" pedagogies to teacher professional development. But then, what I found worked well with "at-risk" students worked well with mainstream students as well.

So, what should we call this strategy?

Student Centered Pedagogies - Part 2

see part 1

The Underlying Problem: Overcoming personal bias:

For the first three years of my career as a teacher I was perfectly happy to do things status quo. I had an idea of what good teaching was based on how I was taught and thought my job was to emulate those who came before. The truth is I didn't care all that much about students. What attracted me to teaching was the content. Being an art teacher meant I could support myself while engaging in the field of study I loved. I expected that there would be a certain percentage of students that would fall through the cracks because I believed the system of school was designed in a way to weed out those who could not "play the game." Because I was successful in school I had a personal bias toward the style of learning that suited me. Since the methods my own teachers used suited me I felt these were probably best. And, since I was successful in this system I saw those who were not successful as somehow inferior and believed that the system sorted people out to either prepare them for future success or show them where their place in the world should be. It wasn't until I became aware of my own bias and saw my own world view from the perspective I just described that I began to change how I viewed the "system" and more so, how I viewed my own classroom.

The status quo works and is allowed to survive in environments where sufficient numbers of students do at least moderately well and a select few excel. Status quo views all learners as having the same learning style and says what is best for the middle child is best for all. This is how NCLB has been interpreted by most schools. However, if you take a situation where no student fits the status quo model you are forced to do some analysis. For me this was when I took a job at an alternative high school. For the first time I was placed in a classroom where all my students were like my prior low performing students. All students were students who did not learn well with established pedagogies. Each child had an extremely different way of seeing the world and processing information. Each child had something about their personality or background that did not make the status quo school a good place for them.

What I discovered was that while some of these students were low functioning, most were extremely bright. However, teaching them using the same methods I used in the status quo high school got me nowhere. If these students are this bright, why should the system return results placing them at the bottom of the ladder? This is how I came to the realization, a position realized by many before, that the problem was my teaching methods and the pedagogical exemplars I had. I had to unlearn what I knew about teaching and reconstruct my understanding of learning. Suddenly I was more concerned with my students than the content. Suddenly I felt more compassion in the classroom. Gradually I saw improvements.

Community Building:

In my time in alternative ed I found I got the greatest bang for my pedagogical buck by investing heavily in community building. It is far more important to establish relationships with students than get through the curriculum. Every time I had a discipline problem, an attendance problem, or a problem with comprehension it could be traced back to the student-teacher relationship. Those students I made an effort to know always were eager to do well and invest their attention in what I had to say. Those who for one reason or another I did not get to know very well were always the ones where I saw problems.

I would make room for this. First, I would not even approach my curriculum for the first 3-5 days of a term. I would take this week to also do some metacognitive reflection.

Metacognitive Reflection:

All of my students in the ALC were there because their learning styles conflicted with the pedagogies at the status quo high school. Much of the reason these students have been unsuccessful was due to either being unaware of their own learning styles or their teachers unaware of their learning styles. We would take this week to talk about times in their life when they felt they learned a lot (school or non school). We would brainstorm what qualities were present in those environemnts that contributed positively to them finding it effective for learning. We also discussed classes they have taken in the past where they did not feel they learned anything and tried to figure out why. From these two lists we established a blueprint for how learning was to occur in the classroom.

Curriculum Compacting:

Every teacher has standards they have to "cover" in a given course. What I see a lot in status quo high is teachers rushing through things to make sure they hit every point. What effect does this have if the student doesn't digest it? One trick I have seen and used effectively is curriculum compacting.

In a traditional classroom the teacher goes over the information, the students read the chapter and do their worksheets, then at the end of the week they take a quiz on it. With curriculum compacting you reverse this order. First quiz the students on what you want to "cover" that week. Some stuff the students will already know...why spend time on it? This is where online survey tools are useful. This diagnosis can be done quickly and results shown immediately. Results can be aggregated to show immediately which questions all students missed and which ones they all got right. This will drive the week's activities. In most cases this method will allow the teacher to go beyond the standards.

continue to part 3