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#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 44/50: The Secret Solution

/ Alicia Ray / 1 Comment

Book 44 is unlike any other book published by Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. This book teaches through a parable, a simple story used to share a lesson. In The Secret Solution, we join Roger Rookie on his first years as principal in a school with underperforming test results. We get a look at the inner-workings of a school, with a cast of characters that looks suspiciously like any school you’d visit. The authors, Todd Whitaker, Sam Miller, and Ryan Donlan, did an outstanding job making this story come to life by sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly of a school and allowing us to have a peak into the mind of the young principal who is finding his way in a fresh position of leadership.

In the epilogue, the authors liken this to watching an episode of The Office. It was so funny to read that because I kept thinking the whole time I was reading that the entire book should be a series like The Office where we get to see all the different personalities and their thoughts (usually beside a window in a conference room or in zoomed in camera shots of smirks on their faces).

Every character in this book related to someone I’ve worked with; I could put a face to the name. From Judy Slacker who puts a price of everything she does outside of the 7:45-3:30 workday to Karl Chameleon who bounces from group to group to the leaders of the teacher cliques like Mildred Morose and Sandy Starr. Each character is an exaggeration (and sometimes a spot-on representation) of educators across our field.

Even though this book appears to be marketed to principals, in particular, new principals or principals of struggling schools, the truths within the parable are applicable to any leadership position. As noted in other DBC, Inc books, leadership can range from being a principal, central office staff, or even a classroom teacher. If you are a classroom teacher, you are leading a group (or multiple groups) of students.

One of my biggest takeaways of this book is balance. This may not have been intended, but I kept feeling that balance is the key to being an effective leader. In the book, Roger Rookie’s pendulum swings from absent & unwilling to make the hard decisions, to a positive pollyanna who strives to only praise positivity and neglects to address negative actions, to a drill sergeant who rules with an iron fist. None of these will work because none of them strikes a balance in leadership. Leaders should be present and positive, while addressing behaviors that impede student learning and lead to negative culture.

I imagine it’s insanely tough to be an administrator, both at the school and district level.  Knowing that it is a statistical impossibility to make everyone happy, while still maintaining (or bless their hearts, building) a positive school culture and instilling a drive for positive scores and growth for accountability. There is a delicate balance that must be preserved in this role. The graphic in the book perfectly showcases how a leader should work to increase climate as they are increasing the accountability expectations.

For me, as a non-administrator, I realize that as I raise the expectations in the media center, I need to work harder to create a positive culture that makes my students and teachers want to reach those higher expectations. People will work for those they fear, but they will not love them. People will work for those they love, but they won’t respect them. The goal is that sweet spot, where leaders are loved and respected.

Another takeaway from this book is that establishing these relationships of love and respect takes time. Roger Rookie wasn’t able to come in and change anything without building relationships. Building a strong relationship takes time; it takes communication, honesty, and mutual appreciation. Only then can change begin to take shape. My first year at my current school was, by far, the worst year I’d had in education. The culture of the school was just short of toxic in many ways. There were cliques formed between teachers, administration was new (either to the school or new to the role), and students were not aware of the expectations. Coming to a middle school from an elementary school was insanely difficult. My mentor kept telling me that it was going to take time, that I needed to play the long game. He would remind me that in just a couple years I would never want to leave that place. I would often laugh in his face when he’d say that. He would grin and bear it, saying, “you’ll see… you’ll see.”

I started working at that school in 2016. This is the beginning of the third school year and it would take quite an offer to get me to leave these people now. I love and respect my principal. She is phenomenal and truly has student interest in mind with every decision she makes. She rarely says “no” to my insane ideas, so when she does, I truly step back and reflect on where the lack of student interest can be found. When I dive deep, I can usually see the deficit. She holds me accountable for my insane ideas after saying yes. I am the world’s worst to have a “great idea” then not see it through. (This is part of the reason that #DBC50Summer is so important to me to not only finish, but to finish by my deadline of the last day of summer.) Making these implementation plans is my way of making myself accountable for my learning. When we are successful, she celebrates with us!

The teachers are phenomenal. They work hard every single day to encourage students to be their best. They bring their “A-game” and expect others to do so as well. As their instructional coach and media coordinator, my calendar fills up so fast that one of their complaints is that they can’t get time to work with me. The fact that we went from several not even knowing my name, much less my role at the school to filling up my calendar for the first nine weeks of school before students even arrive on campus is telling of the change in culture. Every person is responsible for culture. Every person has grown tremendously in this regard. During a summer training, my principal looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “They don’t need me anymore.” She was referring to the fact that the teams were co-planning independently of her asking the questions and the PBL units coming out of these PLCs were incredible. I believe that the tears were from both a place of pride and the knowledge that she is close to taking us as far as she can take us as our leader. I am proud to work at my school, and eager to see what this year brings! We made growth for the first time since 2012 this year, and we will shatter that growth at the record we’re already going. I’m excited to see what happens.

My implementation for this book is very different from the others. I already know which titles are coming in the final 6 books. Divulging my secret that I mentioned in the DBC Summer Recap 4 is coming soon. Therefore, I will partner this book with another that is coming to create an implementation for both. It seems like a scapegoat or something LaVon Babble (another character in this book) would say, but I promise it will make sense when you see the plan.

I would highly recommend this book to beginning principals or principals that are new to a school. It’s a realistic view of how leadership is established and allows us to learn from Roger Rookie’s failures (and boy, does he ever fail). The Secret Solution is a great book for anyone in a leadership role, and really the truths within the book can be applied at all levels. All you’d have to do is substitute principal for teacher and the teachers for students, or principal for director and teachers for principals, etc to receive the same lessons as principals. Hustle on to Amazon and buy your copy of The Secret Solution!

Follow along with the conversation at #SecretSolution on Twitter. You can also catch up with their authors on their websites. Ryan Donlan’s website can be found here and Todd Whitaker here. Sam Miller can be found on Twitter here. As always, the flipgrid is available here. This one sounds like fun, so check it out! Andrea Paulakovich was the originator of this amazing space for global collaboration and reflection for every DBC, Inc book and I am fortunate enough to be able to co-pilot this space!

I am super pumped about book 45 for many reasons. One is that we already know this author duo and I LOVE them from their first book together, Escaping the School Leader’s Dunk Tank! Yep! Rick Jetter and Rebecca Coda are back and they’re discussing one of my most favorite educational topics: student voice! Buckle up, grab some popcorn, and get your copy of Let Them Speak! I read this book shortly after the initial release at the end of April and whew – it’s a great one! In fact, it’s the first DBC, Inc book that I pre-ordered! I’m excited to share book 45 with you very soon!

*PS – Summer officially ends September 22, 2018 at 9:54 pm EST… do the math. These blogs will be coming fast if I want to meet my deadline. And I do.*

#DBC50Summer 43/50: Shake Up Learning

/ Alicia Ray / 3 Comments

I’ve always enjoyed the shiny things in life. I love the feeling of “new”. I’m guilty of tossing something in our house because we just need a “new” one. (It drives my husband absolutely crazy.) I have to admit that I’m the same way with technology. When virtual reality started to become readily accessible in the classroom I was given the opportunity to participate in research with the organization, Foundry10, and I jumped on it! I had no idea how we were going to integrate VR, but I knew I wanted to try. I started out by co-planning lessons that stemmed from the use VR rather than creating ways for VR to enhance the lesson. In the Disney movie Moana, there is a song that the crab sings called “Shiny”. This song reminds me so much of technology and how many of us (myself included) gravitate toward the latest and greatest in an effort to be as shiny as possible.

Newsflash: kids aren’t that impressed with the shiny. After the first few VR experiences, my students are more difficult to impress. They’ve seen the shiny and moved on. As teachers we can’t chase “anything that glitters” – we need real ways to help propel education forward. I believe that Kasey Bell has the solution in her notion of Dynamic Learning Experiences as described in Shake Up Learning, the 43rd book published by Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.

Reading this book was an eye-opener. This is the first book in which I’ve used the space available at the end of every chapter to share my reflections and connections to the chapter. I connected with Kasey from the very beginning, when she described her early years of teaching as a reproduction of how she was taught. I, too, gave problem after problem in math, allowing 2-3 minutes for students to work it out, then showing the entire class how to correctly answer the problem on the overhead, whitebard, SMARTboard, or under the document camera – all that technology just a waste in my classroom for years. It wasn’t until I moved past my fear of change into the realm of risk-taking that I really began to understand that I was doing my students a disservice. And now… I get frustrated that others haven’t reached that same epiphany in a more timely manner. Ironic, much?

Thinking through this book as both a teacher of students and of teachers brings new insight. Focusing on what the students can do with the tool, rather than the tool itself will be imperative as we continue to move forward one step at a time. In our makerspace, we have more tools for learning and creating than we really know what to do with. Our goal in makerspace managers is to create playlists for students and teachers about the tool by creating unboxing videos, tutorial videos, and “what do I do with this” videos. I’m excited to see where this goes and hopeful that our makerspace will be used more this year. I think people just don’t know what they don’t know. The fear of moving into this space with so many unknown tools can make both teachers and students feel a little uneasy. It is my desire to erase that fear this year.

As I read through Kasey’s book, I was continually hit with the notion of Google Keep. In my blog about Ryan Sheehy‘s book Be The One, I mention my desire to use Google Keep to keep myself organized with a checklist. I believe Google Keep is a hidden gem in the Google Suite and I want to uncover that gem for my students and teachers. This is the perfect way for my students to keep a planner, and a way for teachers to stay organized and allow students to create their own learning goals. This tool is constantly showing up in my readings, as well as in professional development and I’m feeling more and more certain that this is a tool I’d like to present to our district’s Digital Learning Leaders in October.

Kasey speaks to using Google Keep, Diigo, and Pinterest as ways to curate resources through digital bookmarking. Curation is so important for both teachers and students. I have used Google Classroom to curate resources for my students, and am thinking Google Keep is a great outlet for curating makerspace playlists, as well as available Virtual Reality content, for my teachers.

I love to learn completely new things! Sometimes I feel as though I’ve reached that point where there’s not a whole lot that impresses me or excites me with technology, as I have used or seen a tool used in multiple ways. The past few years I have attended conferences, I’ve had a lot of “me too” moments. I have been exposed to 360-videos and own the Ricoh Theta S. (We used it in our search for a new home and it helped us pick a home because we had the ability to take a virtual tour of the home. They all run together after seeing 5 or 6 of them in a short period of time.) I started my first makerspace 5 years ago and have been doing high-end virtual reality with the htc Vive for the past 3 years. My school is 1:1 Chromebooks (has been for over 5 years) and has a successful and often used Bring Your Own Device policy. We’ve had 3d printers for at least 4 years. My students have grown up with MinecraftEDU in their media center and we use game-based learning in many of my classes. Gamification is the foundation of EPIC Academy, a teacher professional development model created by my friend and mentor, Lucas Gillispie.

I don’t say all of this to sound pompous or arrogant. It’s just to say that when I hear about something I was unaware of, I get really pumped! This is one reason I loved Kasey Bell‘s Shake Up Learning so much! There are several things I learned about in this book that I’d never heard of, or with which I had limited interactions. One of those things was Google Alerts. I immediately went to set one up for my name, this blog, and #DBC50Summer. I was blown away by the customization and ability to find information about these. I even found a quote from a local newspaper that I was unaware was listed. I can’t believe this service is out there for free! Go check out alerts.google.com!

There are so many practical applications from this book! Choosing one implementation from this book was so difficult because there are oodles and oodles (yes, real words, promise) of reproducible information shared in the pages. I like the idea of choice menus, and I love that Kasey gives multiple examples for various audiences! I like the Dynamic Learning Experiences lesson plans, and I love that Kasey pulls in some spectacular educators to share their own DLE at the end of the book, as well as giving us space to write our own. I like that Kasey implements the ISTE standards and P21.org skills of the Four Cs, and I LOVE that she puts it into an easy-to-understand graphic that brings DLE to the forefront of planning.

My implementation plan comes from the idea that we should be teaching our students and teachers how to fish, not bringing them the fish daily. As an instructional coach, my ultimate goal is to work myself out of a job. I want my learners (whether they are students or teachers) to be able to sustain their own search for knowledge. In an effort to model this, I am going to take the Google Certified Teacher exams this year. I will definitely take (and expect to pass) the Level 1 exam, and would like to carve out the time to take the Level 2. Between this and creating collaborative Google Keep notes for curation among teachers, I’m hoping to begin taking the first steps to empower my teachers to find their own answers. If they are empowered to find their own answers, they will, in turn, empower students to find their own answers.

I very much enjoyed Shake Up Learning and really appreciate the message Kasey shares with educators in her book. Letting go of fear and control is necessary in creating an environment where students feel more comfortable taking risks and failing forward. I would recommend this book to any teacher and administrator who is eager to move from the way it has always been to the way it should be. I’d also recommend this book to the exact opposite audience in hopes that Kasey’s words might be the nudge needed to begin the transformation in their own classroom.

Kasey practices what she preaches by making resources available outside of her book. For more on Shake Up Learning, check out the hashtag #ShakeUpLearning and her website here. There’s no better time to start than now as she is hosting a Book Study beginning on September 27! More information can be found here. The Google Teacher Tribe podcast is a must-listen as Kasey and Matt Miller (author of Ditch that Textbook and co-author of Ditch That Homework) begin season 3 on Monday, September 17! The flipgrid is available here. Thanks to my pal, Andrea Paulakovich, for allowing me to co-pilot this incredible idea of hers to have a global collaboration space for each DBC, Inc book! I also have to say as a southerner, that these shirts are amazing! I will be ordering one as soon as I click publish here! She also shares a companion resource website within the pages of her book, but you’ve got to get the book for that! You won’t be getting it from me! Go grab your copy of the book now so you can start your journey in moving from static lessons to dynamic learning experiences!

I’ve learned enough about DBC, Inc books by now to know that even though book 44 appears to be another book for administrators, I should prepare myself to take away something epic as a non-administrator. The Secret Solution by Todd Whitaker, Sam Miller, and Ryan Donlan is up next! Just taking a sneak peak into the cast of characters provided in the first few pages has me excited to see where this one will take me!