#HindsightEDU

#DBC50Summer 45/50: Let Them Speak!

/ Alicia Ray / 1 Comment

At the end of (almost) every year, I had my students complete a survey. I still have the student surveys from my first year that share what they liked most and what they wanted to see changed. These were so powerful to me because my fifth graders had more insight than I ever imagined. In the following years, my fifth graders would write letters to the upcoming fifth graders. If students allowed me to, I would read their letters and was always blown away by the advice they would give my future students. The things that I had hoped they would walk away with, they usually did. And then some. When I transitioned to the media center, I asked my 3rd-5th grade students in a survey (and my K-2 students in open conversation) about their time in the media center. Using these results, I would begin planning for the next year.

The problem was that I wasn’t asking soon enough and often enough. I know that now. Immediately after reading this book for the first time, I asked my middle school students to take a survey called “Talk to Me” (if you aren’t sure why this is ironic, stick around after #DBC50Summer is over… the irony is definitely there) For the first time ever, I am sharing some of the results of this survey.

The book that inspired the survey to ask the “hard questions” is Let Them Speak! by Rebecca Coda and Rick Jetter (the amazing folks who brought us Escaping the School Leader’s Dunk Tank)! I’ll wait while you go get your own copy real quick. You’re going to want it.

All checked out? Ready to move on?

I asked students to share the good, bad, and ugly about their middle school experience. My only stipulation was that they did not use this as a platform to destroy another teacher, to talk negatively about personality conflicts, etc. I made it amply clear that this is not permission to bash another teacher to me. I don’t like when teachers talk about one another, especially not in front of students, so I didn’t want this to become a sounding board for teacher “dissing”. What I got was raw, open, amazingly honest responses from my students that I value more than ever before.

Below are some of the answers I received from my students.

What would you want to talk about in media this year that we didn’t talk about? *I will use these to create next year’s lessons*

  • Definitely memes. We need more of those, they didn’t get their time to shine.
  • I would like you to talk about bullying and its consequences whether it be digital or not
  • Developing/creating suspense within a story.
  • Bullying/discrimination or about other cultures and learn about them
  • Something about all of the struggles that the world faced this year, I think we should talk about it and not ignore it.

What do you want changed about your media space?

  • I like the Media Centers look but more Art and Vibrant colors on the wall could be really cool
  • I don’t think we need any change in our environment currently we have a very comfortable and creative learning environment.
  • I’d like for it to be a little more “free”/”open” to us more than just once a month. Going once a month is fine, but I think that there should be more opportunities to use resources in the media center than just once a month.
  • I would like more space to read at

Is there anything you want to share about anything related to media?

  • I love Mrs. Ray, she’s super energetic and loves us and what she does.
  • I just love that class. It makes me happy when we get to go
  • One thing i like about this class is that the teacher is enthusiastic and happy about teaching with a good attitude.
  • I don’t think we should have to have to check out a fiction and nonfiction book because what if someone wanted two fiction or nonfiction books.
  • You can be a little to enthusiastic just tone it down a notch or 40 (sorry Mrs.Ray)
  • Maybe not think so much about what you think we might like if that makes sense.

What would you like to see changed at your school?

  • I’d like to see the students actually having a voice in what goes on
  • More one on one times with teachers.
  • I would like for the people to start treating homophobic terms like racist terms.
  • Students can have more say in decisions
  • To have a cheer team
  • i would like to see more kids becoming a group and being friends , kids coming together against bullying

 

Here are tweets of the information as I extrapolated the data last year.
These answers were literally copied and pasted. So now what? What do we do with this?
We listen. We try to get better. We ask our students if we got better. We don’t wait until the end of the year to ask again. We ask early and we ask often.
This year it is my goal to be better, more diligent and purposeful about asking the tough questions. I will be on their turf. What I love about our media center is that it is their space. Our media center is their turf. I am able to have honest conversations in this space. They share things with me that they may not share elsewhere. That is a privilege and a huge responsibility. They are entrusting me with the information to make their experience better. I hope I live up to that expectation for them.
This book is a game-changer. You can feel Rebecca and Rick’s passion for student voice poured into every word they say. Their Let Them Speak! project is so powerful and hearing the words from the students gets me every time. If we just ask students, they will likely answer. If you haven’t developed a relationship with them that is strong enough to promote and accept their truth, have them complete an anonymous survey.
Want to know what it looks like when you ask students their opinions and they know you’re going to take it seriously?

Our students are incredible perceptive. They know things and have a depth of knowledge we’ve not even tapped into that has nothing to do with the DOK that we’re accustomed to considering. Ask them. Just ask them. See what happens.

I cannot possibly share how important it is to read this book. My students are my number ONE priority. Aren’t they yours? Ask them their opinions. Talk with them. Get on their turf. Build the relationships that allows these authentic conversations about controversial, difficult topics. You won’t be disappointed. Here are some of my favorite quotes from Let Them Speak!

“Humans should come before numbers.”

“If we take the time to value adult voice and adult stories, we must take the time to mine for student voice and student stories. Not only is it fair, but it is what is right!”

“Be brave enough to ask, open enough to listen, and wise enough to act when student voice is activated.”

“Our students listen when we speak and something they might overhear us saying can have a lasting impact on them. Our words can hurt their feelings.”

“It’s never too late to activate student voice at any stage of a process in order to improve anything that we do.”

I hope that it is evident that this post has a more somber feel than many of my other #DBC50Summer posts. I also hope that it is obvious why this particular post cuts out a lot of my typical sarcasm. This is important. It’s too important to cheapen with sarcasm. Our students need to be heard. Are you willing to listen?

I could go on and on about this book. I’m just going to say again that you need to buy it. Now. If you are a classroom teacher, administrator, superintendent, you should buy it. You should read it. Then you should start asking questions. On their turf. This is their education. Let’s hear them out. Well-done, Rebecca and Rick. Very, very well done.

Oh, and the implementation plan. Keep asking the questions. I will be asking the 6 questions from the book used in the Let Them Speak! project.

  • What don’t we, as educators, understand about you, the students at this school?
  • What is something that you wish we could do better?
  • What have we failed to recognize about you or your experiences as a student at our school?
  • Is there anything that upsets you about our school that we should fix, rethink, eliminate, or no longer ignore?
  • What do you value the most about your learning experiences at our school?
  • How do you feel the night before coming to school on a new day, after a weekend, or after a holiday or summer vacation?

For more, follow the hashtag #LetStudentsSpeak and connect with Rebecca and Rick on Twitter at @rebeccacoda and @rickjetter, respectively. I highly recommend checking out the Where Are The Pirates? section of the new Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc website! This is an incredible place to find where each author is (including Rick and Rebecca) on social media and the web. Check out the Let Them Speak! website here! You can also access the flipgrid here and share about a time that you listened to your students and changed something in your practice. Thank you, Andrea Paulakovich, for allowing me to be a co-pilot in this wonderful idea of yours for a global collaboration space for all things DBC, Inc! Have you bought your copy of the book yet? You should. Here’s the link again! Go. Buy!

Only 5 books left in #DBC50Summer! This is so hard to believe and I’m really sad to see it end! (Thankfully, DBC, Inc isn’t done releasing books! I’ve got more coming – just have to figure out a new name for this journey!) Also… do you remember that secret I alluded to in the Summer Recap 4? It’s coming up in the next post. Book 46 is The Path to Serendipity by Allyson Apsey. Can’t wait to share my secret, and this book, with you next!

#DBC50Summer 40/50: The EduProtocol Field Guide

/ Alicia Ray / 2 Comments

When I taught in the classroom, we typically had three days before we jumped into the content. During those three days, we covered handbook, policies, had a whole-school assembly to discuss school expectations through Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS), labeled our folders, notebooks, wrote our names in textbooks, and we learned all of the daily procedures for the classroom. The only thing I did during those first few days that was student-led was allowing them to create their own rules for the classroom. Even then, the rules usually landed in one of four areas, so class rules ended up being the same every year. Be respectful, be responsible, be punctual, and be prepared. After 5 years, I can still rattle them off.

It wasn’t until several years had gone by like this in the classroom that we did any culture building at the beginning of the year. This is when we were introduced to Kagan Cooperative Learning and I instantly loved the Class Builders. From then on, I would do activities where students were stranded on a desert island and had to order their supplies from most important to least important, or students would have to decide which of five patients on a donor list would get the next available heart based on the information given. They would have to advocate for their patient to their peers.

In the elementary media center, I would go over care of books, expectations, and allow students to check out books for the first time and we would discuss how I wanted that done. In the middle school media center, I still do the expectations discussion and allow them to check out books, but we don’t really discuss care of books at length. Last year, I revamped the lesson to include rules & expectations shown through memes. I was super pumped about the lesson, but according to my students’ survey results at the end of the year, 25% of the students didn’t even remember the lesson while another 41% said it was just alright. I listened to the students. I knew I needed to do something new with the opening lesson in the media center so I was super excited to see that book 40 was The EduProtocol Field Guide by Marlena Hebern and Jon Corippo!

This book had exactly what I was looking for!!! I had read it back in April after purchasing it from Dave Burgess at an event in a nearby county. (I blogged about how inspired I was after that event here.) So I knew that this book held the answer, but I couldn’t remember specific directions to the protocols. I just remembered being excited to implement the protocols this year, as my media time with students was already coming to a close when I discovered the book last year.

One of my very favorite things about this book, (other than the actual protocols, which are on fire) is the banter between Marlena and Jon in the margins! Their personalities totally shine through the pages! I also love that there is plenty of space to write notes in the margins of the page! This is truly a manual to keep fingertips away when creating experiences for students!

In the 100th episode of Kids Deserve It with Adam Welcome and Todd Nesloney, Adam asks Dave who is “inspiring him right now”. His answer? See the video below.

It is that very idea of immediately implementing that has me still awake after 2:30 in the morning completing book 40 and writing this post. I’m so excited about the overhaul in my media lesson for this week that I had to blog it instantly. I can’t wait to get feedback from the students to learn their reaction to the changes!

Reviewing media expectations won’t be done with a lecture this year, not even a slide deck with memes! Instead I am creating a review game in Quizizz where students will guess my response to various scenarios. (This game will be linked in the implementation blogs to follow in the coming weeks.) Students will play the game independently, then we will review missed questions and they will immediately play the game again with the same questions (although likely in a different order). This Smart Start is called “Fast and Curious”.

A Smart Start provides a warm-up of sorts for the EduProtocols to follow. It shows students the up-tempo pace (I love this concept of shortening the amount of time given to complete assignments/activities/protocols in order to create a sense of urgency rather than procrastination!) It’s also just fun, and something outside the expected “first day” routines! Jon & Marlena have their acronym game on point in this book! Several examples of well-used acronyms are available in The EduProtocol Field Guide, with one of them being the Smart START guiding principles.

The guiding principles of Smart START are Smile (keep it fun), Teach (finish on time), Activities (developing the culture and practicing tech skills that will be needed), Routines (structured, but fluid), and Target Barriers (students are already learning one another’s names and finding similarities between themselves and their classmates)!

After completing “Fast & Curious”, I will have students put the Book Fair dates in their phone calendars (or planners) as the next media class is Book Fair! Then we will have a discussion about my reading goals this summer. I am so excited to tell the students about #DBC50Summer and highlight some of the posts from authors of books and share the hashtag with them so they can see the insane amount of learning I completed this summer in order to make school better for them! From that conversation, we will transition into their own reading goals. They will complete a Google Form sharing their goal with me and their teachers along with rationale for their goal. Then they will move through three fast-paced stations! Stations will be as follows:

  1. Flipgrid & Five Words Form: Students will share their reading goal (only visible to the student, me, and their ELA teacher) and give themselves a little pep talk (think Kid President style). This video will be revisited in October when I see them to motivate them to continue pushing toward their goal. In November, they will create a video response sharing whether they met their first quarter goal or not. They will then identify a new goal for 2nd quarter and record it. This will happen throughout the year. Also in this station, students will complete a Google Form survey about what five words describes their core classes (math, ELA, social studies, science) and their encore classes (art, band/chorus, pe, computer science discoveries, project lead the way 1 and 2). These results will be compared to the responses from teachers about what they hoped students would say about their experience in their classes.
  2. Book Checkout: Students will be encouraged to check three books out of the media center and reminded that they will return to the media center in two weeks to exchange books. Soap box moment: Students can select ANY book they’d like from our shelves. I don’t care if it’s graphic novels, Diary of A Wimpy Kid, Dork Diaries, or Shakespeare. I just want them to get something they are interested in and READ!
  3. Club Information & Sign-Ups: I sponsor multiple clubs at my school, both in the afternoons and in the mornings. I always look forward to having students engage in these clubs and getting to know them in a much more informal manner. I will unveil the 8th grade puzzle and allow 8th graders to sign up to work on it, as well as share information in our Google Classroom about Makerspace Managers, Innovation Engineers, Between the Lines Book Club, Battle of the Books, and Virtual Reality. Students will signify interest in any of the clubs they’d like by signing up on one of the whiteboard around the media center (also giving them time to move and check out any new furniture, books, etc they haven’t yet seen in their space). Those students will have permission forms sent home the following day.

After stations, we would have moved into the “Things That Rock” Smart Start, but the power of Twitter is tremendous! Check this out!

I posted the lesson outline on Twitter.

To which Marlena replied:

I pointed out that I only see them once a month, to which she replied:

Yes… yes I did just collaborate with the author of the book while planning my lessons for the week (my implementation plan). <insert squeal here> I’ve just got to reiterate how incredible the authors of Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc are! They are tremendous educators, amazing authors, and most importantly, exceptional humans. So following Marlena’s advice, I am going to move Things That Rock to the end as an additional activity if needed. I will move the What People Think meme creation up as a school-wide collaborative document. Each student will be given a slide and they will reflect on the changes in the library and what they feel they can expect from their time in our media center.

Upon completion, we will complete the Smart Start of “Worst Preso Ever” in which we watch a short video about poorly designed presentations and they intentionally create a slide in a poorly designed presentation of their opinion of their first impressions of the school year.

I am so excited to implement this plan (created with input from Marlena – WOO HOO) for The EduProtocol Field Guide! Truly, I am hoping to eventually use all of the Smart Starts and EduProtocols this year, but for the purpose of #DBC50Summer, my implementation will be these first lessons with every student in the school this week! Follow the incredible conversations surrounding this book on Twitter using the hashtag #EDUProtocols! Marlena and Jon are both very active on Twitter and I highly suggest following them at @mhebern and @jcorippo, respectively. There are many podcasts featuring the authors and/or the book, so I would suggest just using “the power of the Google” to listen to them (or watch them on YouTube). You will definitely want to check out the EduProtocols website! As always, check out the flipgrid and share your favorite of the #EDUProtocols or Smart Starts! Big thank you to Andrea Paulakovich for allowing me to co-pilot this awesome global collaborative space for all DBC, Inc books!

This post wraps up another set of ten DBC, Inc books! Wow! Summer Recap 4 is coming soon, as well as book 41! I wonder if it will Be The One you’re expecting next…

#DBC50Summer 36/50: Stories From Webb

/ Alicia Ray / 9 Comments

As I read book 36, I knew exactly what my implementation will be and I am terrified. Not just the butterflies and jittery anxiety, but hair-standing-on-end, sweating, dizzy, gut-clenching terrified. I’ve known what I wanted to do since I was a young girl. And now it’s time to share with the rest of you.

I don’t have an anecdote to share today, which is pretty dang ironic if you stop and think about it. I just have a plan; the implementation that has been weighing on me for a while. Reading each of the first 50 Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc books has been an amazing journey; one that has been filled with so much support, encouragement, motivation from my Professional Learning Network. Book 36, Stories from Webb by Todd Nesloney (co-author of Kids Deserve It) confirmed one of my deepest fears and my greatest hopes. Through reading this book, hearing the voices of Todd’s staff of Webb Elementary, tears running down my face or smiling from ear to ear, I am acutely aware of the effect of words on others. Words can inspire or tear down, portray compassion or apathy, impart wisdom or uncover ignorance. Writing has always been part of my life. I have never enjoyed it while doing it, but once the process was complete, I always looked back and was thankful I completed it.

As a young girl, I would sit in my bedroom and write stories, three or four chapters long. It was always realistic fiction, but I couldn’t get the characters out of my head until I wrote about them. As a middle schooler, we were required to keep a journal and choose from hundreds of prompts to write an entry each morning. I shared that journal with some of my family who loved it (although I truly believe they are a bit biased). If I’ve ever needed to express my thoughts on a deeper level, writing has always been easier than speaking. When I’m thinking through a problem, I scribble a pro/con list. Through #DBC50Summer, I have realized that while the books are tremendous, and I do mean fantastic, my growth has only been in part because of the words written by these amazing authors. The majority of my growth has come through the written reflections on my practice and how I can improve through an implementation plan. As an adult, I dream about characters and their stories for multiple nights, then they just vanish (likely because I’m not writing them down anymore). My mom has always told me that she envisions me writing children’s books. Looking back, it’s easy to see why she would think that.

Looking back is exactly what I have in mind. Hindsight. How many times have you wished you could go back in time for a do-over? It might only be 5 minutes, or even 20 years, that you’d like to erase, but the common theme is that we’d all like to have a redo in some moments of life. Reflection is such a major piece of education. Without reflecting on our practice, and on the stories of individual students, parents, colleagues, administrators, we become stagnant. I love that Todd’s school family shared their stories within the pages of Stories From Webb. It was so powerful to read and connect with each one.

I’ve alluded (several times) on Twitter to writing my own story.

Are you seeing a pattern? My implementation? I’m going to write that book. A dear friend of mine and I have been tossing around the idea of writing an educational book for a couple of years. I definitely want to do that, but it doesn’t feel like it’s my story. It’s more of a how-to with resources. In one of those “shower moments” one day (they’re legit, by the way – check out Tara Martin‘s #3minPD on this topic), I just knew I wanted to write my story about my epic fails and how I responded to them. Think of it as a “what not to do” manual of sorts. Then, with more experience and hindsight, share what I should have done and what I would do in the same situation now.

PS… it will be 20 chapters long… because you know. Hindsight is 20/20.

So now what? Todd has put the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. At the very end of his book in the acknowledgements section (yes, I read the forewords, dedications, and acknowledgements of every book), he wrote this to the readers:

I hope that you choose to be brave, love wildly, take risks, embrace the challenges, and most of all, remember that every moment is an opportunity to be better. It’s a scary thing, but just like my team and I did in this book, we need you to share your story! Write a blog, tweet it out, share it on Facebook, but get out there and share your brilliance with the world. We need your stories too.

~Todd Nesloney, Stories From Webb

I hear you, Todd. The stories of your staff have inspired me; your stories touched my heart. You make me believe that even thought it’s insanely scary, I should put my story on paper. I will share my story. Even if it’s never officially published, I’ll share parts of it on my blog. Possibly the next blog series? #HindsightEDU? We’ll see. For now, I need to finish #DBC50Summer, read and blog the amazingness of books 51-56 (and the newest one by Tisha Richmond, Making Learning Magical – cannot WAIT for Tisha’s book coming mid-September), then no more putting it off. I keep making excuses for myself. I know that when I add this to my implementation plans for #DBC50Summer, I remove the ability to make excuses.

For more stories from incredible educators around the world, jump into the #TellYourStory chat with Todd on Wednesdays at 8:30 pm EST. You can also follow along with others 24/7 using the same hashtag (As a note, #StoriesfromWebb as well as #KidsDeserveIt are also used to share stories)! Visit Todd’s website and grab a shirt while you’re at it! (Shirts are available the first week or so each month.) If you do nothing else, check out Todd’s amazing YouTube channel for episodes of #TellYourStory! Todd has hosted, as well as appeared as a guest on multiple podcasts. I’d suggest just doing a Google search for all of that awesomeness. This book is definitely worth picking up a copy! It’s one of those that you can randomly turn to any page of the book and be inspired and remember your why. It eliminates the feeling of loneliness that educators can sometimes feel as it reminds you there are others fighting the good fight, too! Go ahead and get your own copy; hurry!

As always, there is a flipgrid for global collaboration and reflection. Thanks to Andrea Paulakovich for allowing me to copilot this insanely awesome idea she had! So fortunate to have met her through #DBC50Summer!

Book 37 is The Principled Principal by Jeff Zoul (of Start. Right. Now.) and Anthony McConnell. This is one of the longer books. As I have zero interest in becoming an administrator, I’m interested to see how I might be able implement this one. I like a challenge, though. So… let’s get started.

Feel the need to share a little awesome sandwich with you (posterity and all, you know) – the time Todd came to #ncties15 and I got to meet him & chat with him & Jennifer LaGarde.