To put it simply… there is something here for everyone!

Description
This presentation takes participants along my journey into integrating 2.0 applications and “21st Century Learning” into my pedagogy. The presentation will show how teacher driven assignments and projects teach students some of the skills they need to use these new technologies to enhance their learning. Scribe Posts, Growing Posts and E-Portfolios will provide participants with three different activities to do with their students. The final part of my presentation takes participants into “unprojects”. Participants will learn how to create “unprojects”. For the veteran teacher who is using 2.0 in their classroom this is for you. See how students are more creative and show more enthusiasm towards assignments when they are in charge of their learning.

This is where the future of education should be heading… Kudos to Chris Harbeck!

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Unfortunately I will not be participating in the CUEBC Conference with Will Richardson. He comes all the way to my neighbourhood and I have to miss him! Fortunately I am missing this so that I can help out at a Student Leadership Retreat with my school. I have run these camps for many years (and have resources to share). This year I am helping out rather than leading. I look forward to this, and I hope to learn a lot with the advantage of a different (less stressful) perspective. Joni, is a great leader who truly lives by the mantra I borrowed from Dave Sands, “I teach leadership not followship”. I wish I could do both events, but at least I am doing something that I will enjoy and learn from. You can do the same by heading to one of Chris’ links above.

Originally posted: October 18th, 2006 Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting: It’s all about empowering students to be responsible for their own learning… whether teaching them content in a class, having them explore an area of interest, or having them run a school-wide activity as part of a leadership program. Chris’s comment on this post said, Thanks for visiting the presentation. I hope you can use the tools with your students. You will find that when students have creative control over how they present information they rise to new levels of learning. Have fun. Chris make it interesting Here is his unprojects presentation: | View | Upload your own

If you come to a fork in the road, take it. – Yogi Berra

Transitions

I’ve taken a job at a high school and I am looking forward to the new challenge! After seven years of teaching Grade 8′s and two years of teaching Grade 9′s, I will now be teaching Grade 10′s. The new position also provides me with the opportunity to make connections with students in every grade (9-12). The job has two key components:

1. Coordinate the Graduation Transitions Program at the school.

2. Teach Planning 10.

My immediate challenge is that the Government’s Graduation Transitions Program is not what it was last year. I must make it clear to Teachers, Students, and Parents, what the changes are from the Graduation Portfolio Program (that the Government initiated, then pulled out of at the 11^th hour). The politics and opinions behind this change could be the subject of a very long post, but this is all I will say here: Some people will welcome this change, some are saddened by it, and it is my job to make the most of it, as well as to make the transition easier, and more meaningful to those involved in the new process.

My biggest challenge is in presenting the new information to Grade 11′s and 12′s since the program is introduced in Planning 10, which they have already finished. I am fortunate that teachers meet these students monthly for advisory time, and so there will be an opportunity to share/present information to them. The first session is next week, and so my planning has already begun.

One highlight that I was delighted to discover was that I will be sharing a computer lab for my Planning 10 course… soon I will be exploring the possibilities…

Transformations

I was amazed at how many resources I threw away and gave away as I packed up 9 years of teaching resources. I think that I would have kept twice as much if I had moved a year ago, but I have changed so much in this past year. Even if I were to return to Middle School in the future, my experiences with the world of web2.0 have opened my eyes to ways that I should and would teach, with our without the use of technology. I’m not belittling what I have done in the past, simply noting that my priorities and interests have shifted, and so my approach has changed too.

The caterpillar is a beautiful animal too,
but a butterfly cannot be the caterpillar again
after it has been transformed.

On another topic, I wonder how this blog will change? I know that it will be somewhat different as a result of my new position, but will it be a transformation into something new, or will it just veer slightly, while heading in the same general direction? I guess I will know in a couple months!

Transgressions

I’m really gong to miss my last school. It has been a big part of my life for so long, and I am leaving a wonderful staff, that I will miss dearly. My wife, Ann, has taught at the school for 6 years, and it has been wonderful having the opportunity to work, socialize and commute with her. She is moving on to a new school as well and her dynamic personality, leadership, encouragement, guidance, student advocacy and social committee duties will be missed by one and all. My teaching partner, Armaghan, was fantastic to work with and I am not sure if I will ever work with someone who compliments me (and puts up with me) as well as she did. We would have 45 second meetings in which entire day schedules would be flipped upside-down to accommodate each other’s needs. We have similar expectations and share the same respect for students. We both focus on our student’s potential, and their abilities to work and lead. We usually noticed the same issues with students that had challenges, and we shared the view that students should almost always be present at parent meetings- (After all, whose education are we talking about?) We made a great team, and I will miss working with her dearly!

Years ago I read a book called Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t. In that book Lee Iacocca was considered a Level 4 leader, with the optimum leader being a Level 5 leader. He only warranted a ’4′ since he lead by command and did not develop the team around him. Ford faltered after he left, whereas under a Level 5 leader, a company usually performs better after the leader has left, because he/she has built leadership capacity while being there. Although I cannot say that I necessarily built capacity for the Student Leadership Program, what I did do was help to create the structure such that other school leaders besides myself could share their interest and expertise in the program. Armaghan has been involved in the leadership program for a few years now, and I am sure that under her guidance the program will blossom! I will still be involved with the program to some extent since my Grade 5 Leadership Retreats will be funded by Staff Development and so I am excited to see that program potentially expand to other Middle Schools in the coming year. It also allows me the opportunity to continue to work with Armaghan, and my old school a little longer.

But now is not a time for too many transgressions. I look forward to meeting new friends, and creating positive relationships at my new school. It is time to focus on what lies ahead! I have a lot to do in order to make my new position great and, as Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, chances are you’ll end up somewhere else.”

Originally posted: August 28th, 2007 Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting: I have to laugh at the quote at the end of this post: “If you don’t know where you are going, chances are you’ll end up somewhere else.” Well, it seems that even if you DO know where you are going, you still end up somewhere else! In December of ’07 I had a long chat with my wife about ‘where I was going’ and predicted a 4-year path before (perhaps) getting into administration. Less than 2 months later I was promoted to Vice Principal of a Middle School (with 9 days notice). I came to another fork in the road… and I took it! So many other things seemed to have popped up for me too: Alan November inviting me to speak at BLC08, becoming my own web-host, and getting a blog post printed in a Grade 8 Language Arts textbook. I could never have seen this coming!

Spring brings new beginnings just as a school year comes to an end. As a teacher it is difficult not to be reflective in June.

Special moments remembered, peppered lightly with what could have been, and never transpired. The nostalgia seems to loom more so this year as I contemplate a move after my nine-year career in a single school.

Two things I have come to realize: I have been fortunate to have worked with some amazing people in an amazing school, and it is time to move on.

My stint has not been without changes:

• the school changed from a 7-9 Junior High, to a 6-8 Middle School

• 2 principals and 6 different vice principals

• only 3 teachers have been there longer than I have

• I have taught in 6 different classrooms

• I’ve taught 2 different grades

• I’ve been both a Humanities and a Math/Science teacher

• I’ve only repeated my same course load twice in 9 years

My stint has not been without challenges: With a wonderful student dying in her sleep days after she finished Grade 9, and job action (twice), being two of the more emotionally draining experiences.

Yet my stint at this school has been wonderful in so many ways. Imagine being hired right out of the education program and put into a school with 13 other brand new teachers – about half the teaching staff! We had an unbelievable year of learning from each other. Every time you walked into another teacher’s room you were ‘wow-ed’ by what you saw… and in the spirit of learning, there wasn’t a sense of one-ups-man-ship that can happen in such a situation, but rather a desire to offer an equally engaging experience in your own classroom. The people I shared those early teaching experiences with are now my closest friends.

And now it is time to move on. I said that four, three, two years ago, and last year too, and still find myself at the same school because it has offered me so much, and yet this time I am sure that I will find another ‘home’.

I have posted on a few very different High School jobs, including English/Socials in a Gifted Program, a Math 9/10 position, a Planning 10 and Graduation Transition Coordination position, and a Leadership/PE/Student Services position… each one desirable for many differing, but equally intriguing reasons. I already know that I won’t be offered the first one, thankfully as it will also be taught with Grade 12 English, (which I have no desire to teach). I was encouraged to apply for that job by a parent of a gifted student in my class going into the program, that in itself was a wonderful compliment. I have just spent some time preparing for interviews, happening tomorrow, for the next two jobs I posted for. I have a passion for Math, and know that I would enjoy focusing all of my attention into one subject area… (hopefully with some access to technology:-) I would also love the opportunity to contribute to the developing Graduation Transitions Program in a school, and perhaps use wikis to coordinate some of the large scale school-wide events organized in order to meet the graduation requirements of every student. Also, I would be interested in implementing an e-portfolio into the Planning 10 course. The final posting would include teaching Leadership at a High School, a position I have wanted to do for years, and something that would make my Grade 5 Leadership/Transition Retreats easier to expand into a district initiative next year.

It is a bit boggling that my interests could take me in so many different directions, and yet I feel ready for which ever path I have the opportunity to follow.

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I have also been reflecting on this blog over the past while. It has been wonderful documenting my trials, tribulations, and triumphs over the past few months, and the cathartic nature of blogging is one that I can no longer do without. I teach, therefore I blog. However, I have slowly realized that I am a slow-blogger who creates posts in a crock pot, not a pressure cooker. Recently, I have found it hard to write, and for that matter hard to engage in reading blogs. I have had a few tabs open for days now, with great posts half-read. For this reason, I will be taking a small hiatus, probably fully unplugging for a while in early July. As I near that break, I can’t help but wonder how my blog will change, depending on which job I have the opportunity to hold next year?

Images by Roman Edirisinghe on Flickr.

Originally posted: June 18th, 2007 Comments from the original post: 1. David, What a year… You well deserve a break. I wonder how we manage to read the same posts, roughly around the same time. I remember your comment in my blog about finding there a link you had lost. I had also bookmarked Barbara Ganley’s post on slow-blogging for a future post. I think I belong there too. The good thing about your slow-blogging is that once you do post, I do not scan you in my RSS, I really want to slow down and read you. Just echoing this to myself: “I teach, therefore I blog”. I want to make sure I remember it. Claudia Ceraso on Tuesday, 19 June 2007, 03:55 CEST 2. David, it has been great getting to know you through your blog. I feel that, at times, you were just around the corner and our conversations would pick up where they left off. I know that whatever direction you go, your dedication to students and learning will shine. Enjoy your well deserved time away and don’t fret about the blog – the writing will take care of itself. It always does. Take care! Kelly Christopherson on Wednesday, 20 June 2007, 07:41 CEST Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting: These comments come from two of several bloggers whom have become my teachers and friends. I have learned from them that I don’t need a Face-to-Face encounter in order to build a meaningful relationship. What has struck me with both of them is how our digital lives have had uncanny parallels, and through commenting on my and their blogs, we have become ‘linked’ in many ways. - – - This was my last post for over 2 months, I ended up taking the entire summer off. As you will see in future posts, I took the Graduation Transitions Program Coordinator position along with teaching Planning 10. Little did I know that it would be a one-semester gig before being promoted to Vice Principal. - – - I think my blogging ‘voice’ changed after the break. This was a ‘last’ post in many ways for me. That said, it was a very healthy change. I think, as I look back, I see a lot of frustration, and as I look forward from this point I see a lot of hope and opportunity. “Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours” Richard Bach: Illusions I can still get whiny that ‘things aren’t moving fast enough’ or ‘we need more resources’, but in the end what I seek are opportunities for our students to soar and I can’t do that when I’m assuming limitations that prevent this from happening.

For a few years now I have taken a group of Grade 7 and 8 students to our feeder schools to teach the incoming Grade 5′s the “Seven Secrets of Leadership”, but really it is about so much more than that!

This is from the e-mail I send to our feeder schools:

What you get: 12-15 of our Leadership Students and a teacher running sessions on “The 7 Secrets to Leadership”. An opportunity for your grade 5 teachers to meet and/or work with the grade 4 students in their classes. (Your teachers do not need to be in the gym, although they are invited to see what we are doing, and stay as they wish.) A reflective journal written by all the students to use as a discussion starter or as feedback for what the students have learned. A positive experience to help make transition to grade 6 less stressful for your Grade 5’s. What your students get: A carousel of 5 activity based lessons run by our Leadership students. -In one activity students all Grade 5’s learn to open combination locks. A few group activities that teach students about leadership. A reflective journal to keep after the session is done. A chance to see grade 7 and 8 students as positive role models. A positive experience the helps students with the transition to Middle School. What we get: An authentic leadership experience for our grade 7 and 8 students. Grade 6 students entering the school next year with positive expectations about what Middles School students are like. (Also, no tears from the stress of opening a combination lock as well as the stress of dealing with everything else that can overwhelm a new student on their first few days of Middle School). We require the use of your gym for 2 to 2.5 hours. All grade 5 students are invited, even if they will be going to another Middle School- the program is not specific to our school.

The Agenda looks like this:

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12:30 Arrive at feeder school and set up

1:00 Grade 5 Teachers brings students to gym.
-introductions

Truss -Journal, ‘Secrets’ intro.
Journal Entry – “What makes a good leader?” -Truss

Ice Breaker 2- Leadership Games – 1 or 2 groups
- Alphabetical by name – Tyler
- Birthday – Sarah
Continue games but no talking anymore
- Height – Deighton
- Hair Colour – Callie
- Shoe Size – (optional)

Journal Entry –Truss
SECRET #1 – TREAT OTHERS WELL

12:20 Split into 5 groups and move them to the stations
Truss “Get a secret – keep a secret” – Don’t talk about the stations.
‘Don’t you hate it when someone tells you how a movie ends?’

5 Sessions run 5 times by our student leaders:
12:30 Session 1 :: 12:45 Session 2 :: 1:00 Session 3
1:15 -Break from the rotation–
Read ‘The Butterfly Story‘ – Sara
SECRET #2 – THINK BEFORE YOU ACT
Journal Entry, then rotate to next station
1:30 Session 4 :: 1:45 Session 5

Station # A – Balloon Challenge SECRET #3 WORK TOGETHER
Station # B – Maze SECRET #4 BE POSITIVE (Cooperation)
Station # C – Blanket Fold SECRET #5 EVERYONE MATTERS
Station # D – Locks SECRET #6 ACCEPT NEW CHALLENGES
Station # E – Human Knot SECRET #7 LISTEN FIRST, THEN TALK

1:55 QUICK Synthesis: What Secret to Leading by Example did we learn from…

The final secret
SECRET TO SUCCESS IN GRADE 6 (A bonus secret) -Truss
When you can’t solve a problem by yourself… ASK FOR HELP

-Homework (3 questions in the middle of the journal)
- – - – -
10 min. Debrief for our Crew

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I will be building a resource package to explain the events soon (with the help of my students).
If things work out with funding, I will be helping to implement this program with a number of Middle School Student Leadership teams in our district next near. [Update: I did a Pro-D session in January, though I am not aware of any additional schools doing this to end off '08. I think there was enough interest from a teacher here at my new school, (even before I got here), that these sessions will happen in the '08-'09 school year.]

One important note is that the lessons, ‘the secrets’, are decided upon by my students. This year students continued on with 4 of the 5 activities that we did last year, but one (the Balloon Challenge) is new, and one of the older activities has a different lesson, as was decided by the group that is running that activity this year. Two years ago, one of the Leadership Lessons was “Take a Risk”. I wasn’t a fan of this initially, but the group did a fantastic job of running a related activity and explaining how leaders take smart risks rather than poor chances. I am glad I trusted them and didn’t try to change their idea because of my bias.

For me, the best part of the retreat is seeing my students improve their ability to communicate their instructions clearly and lead a group of students with enthusiasm and intent.

An excellent learning experience happened this year when students running the blanket fold were over-explaining/demonstrating their activity. The blanket fold instructions were given such that not only did Grade 5 participants understand that the blanket was to be folded, as small as possible, while everyone stood on it (no one can step off or touch the ground), but they also got a demonstration on how to fold the blanket. I told my students, “you are cutting open their cocoons”, in reference to The Butterfly Story and my students fully understood my message… let them figure out how to fold the blanket on their own – don’t do it for them!

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Last week Monday I took a few of my leaders and we ran our activities with some Grade 3′s & 4′s at a Peer Helper retreat organized by two great principals, Dave Sands and Mark Clay. Their combined effort involved students from two very different Elementary Schools, one that could be classified as ‘Inner City’ and the other from a very upper-middle class neighbourhood, both out of my school’s catchment area.

When we arrived at 5pm the Peer Helpers had already had a full day of training so we took the distinct ‘lessons’ out of our activities and made the activities much more focussed on fun. We started out with a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors for candy, with my students making sure that everyone always had candy to participate, (a chance for them to lead by example). Then my students ran their activities at 5 stations around the gym. Next, I did an activity for the Grade 3′s and 4′s to ‘put together the pieces’ and relate what we did to their Peer Helper programs. But in the end it was these Grade 3′s and 4′s who help me put some ideas together and taught me something…

We should be teaching Grade 5′s at the start of the year to help them become leaders in their school, rather than just at the end of the year to help them transition to Middle School. Later in the week, in talking with two other Elementary Principals when we did the Seven Secrets Retreat at their school, they too thought this would be a great idea. One of them, Perry, suggested that we train Grade 4′s at the end of the year and come back and do more with them at the start of the next year. The challenge for us would be getting our program up and running at the start of the year. A lot to think about!

The simple fact is that students of all ages have the capacity to lead… they just need to be provided with the opportunity, along with a little training and support.

Originally posted: June 11th, 2007 Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting: I can list a number of reasons why things didn’t move ahead as planned: I moved to a busy high school job that involved developing another program; My goal was to get some collaboration time with Student Leadership Teacher Leaders and their students, but I only got a single afternoon Pro-d introduction to the teachers; I was promoted to VP just weeks after the presentation to the Middle School Student Leadership Teacher Leaders… these all amount to nothing more than excuses! That said, I need to make things work in my own new school before expanding the program. My school is embarking on a WEB program that has many similar goals to my program AND it has built in sustainability by the building of relationships beyond a single-day event. It will be my job to promote this only in as much as it will add value to what will already be happening thanks to a number of teacher leaders that are taking a great leadership role in connecting to our incoming Grade 5′s. Collaboration is key… on the level of all the adults working together in the building AND also in our ability to collaborate and empower our students… as I said, ‘students of all ages have the capacity to lead’.

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Yesterday, I was in a meeting with a parent and one of my students, (why do teachers have parent meetings about a teenage student’s education and not have the student there too?)

The parent observantly noted that although her son could be physically in a room, he could often ‘disconnect’ and be elsewhere in his mind. For him to be more successful, he would need to engage more in what was going on. I told him, with all honesty, that I too had that problem to the point that my parents worried that I might have been on drugs (I wasn’t). It took until my Grade 13 year (Ontario, Canada) to recognize that I needed to be a participant in the classroom in order to ‘stay connected’.

As I was talking my student interrupted and said, “I just had a flash of insight, I’m a mop not a sponge!”

He got it! And today he proved it. He was a fully engaged participant in my Math lesson. I can hear myself in upcoming classes, “Remember to be the mop”.

“Metaphors may create realities for us, especially social relations. A metaphor may thus be the guide for future actions.” George Lakoff & Mark Johnson “The more we understand metaphor, the more we understand ourselves.” Dan Pink

We try to get ‘all the way down’ to the bottom of things when really what we need is insight into things. [Uhhhg! A perfect case-in-point: I just finished deleting an overdone, unnecessary paragraph describing this.]

We don’t need to ‘fix’ as much as we need to understand… (deeply, not literally).

We must dance to the music, not count the bars, or get to the final note.

Metaphors are the foundation of our thoughts. They assemble ideas, they construct meaning, they build understanding. They create learning.

Metaphors teach

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Some Metaphor Resources:

Tick-Tack-Treat (This leadership lesson plan is a favorite from my retreat!) This includes an introduction to the use of Metaphors and Stories in Leadership Education taken from my Masters Paper.

Teaching Metaphors : Great stories that warm the heart, and teach the soul.

My del.icio.us tagged with ‘metaphor’

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Credits: Turtles all the way down, story and image are from Wikipedia, but I first read it here: ‘Turtles All the Way Down: Prerequisites to Personal Genius‘. ‘Magic mop’ image by Chris Hogg on Flickr. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson quote, ‘Metaphors We Live By‘, University of Chicago Press, 1980, pg. 156. Quote by Dan Pink:’A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future‘, Penguin Group, 2006, pg. 140. ‘Life & Music’ video written by Alan Watt

Originally posted: April 5th, 2007 Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting: In schools we tend to be so literal and focused on what is ‘Right’ or ‘True’. Metaphors help define us, they help us create meaning… and they even help us identify who we are, and what is important to us. Jeg går en Tur – A self portrait by Lasse Gjertsen

For a number of years I have used The Candy Cultures Activity, first as a multiculturalism activity, then as a leadership activity. I had a chance to experience it on two other levels recently. First, I ran the activity at our Pro-D with staff a week ago. I also shared it with the Student Leadership Council (SLC) Executive and, this week, they ran the activity at their first meeting with about 60 students participating.

In the activity members of a specific culture greet and chat with members of other cultures. One culture consists of ‘close talkers’ who like to make physical contact when talking, others like their personal space. Some cultures feel subservient and/or superior to other cultures. Participants mingle and a funny social ‘dance’ begins.

With the staff: After running this activity with students for so many years it was wonderful to run it with adults. I was impressed with the involvement of my peers, they really engaged in the activity. What I enjoyed most was listening to the meta-analysis of the activity during the debrief. I didn’t have to lead the conversation anywhere, it simply flowed from why we did it as a staff, to why to do the activity with students, to how it relates to our school beliefs…etc. I ended the debrief talking about how sometimes in a meeting we might all have the schools’ best interest in mind, but yet because of a defensive tone, or because of someone taking a different approach, we end up seeing each other in adversarial roles. We misinterpret ‘delivery’ with ‘intent’. I then pointed out that in 9 years at the school this is the first time we have almost all of the staff back. We know each other, and don’t need to do the ‘cultural dance’ we do with new people, so we really have the potential to have a great year.

With the SLC, (student leaders representing each Middle and High School in the district): I have never had the opportunity to casually observe this activity without being involved in some way. The approach taken was very good, and what I really liked was the debrief questions they came up with.

• 1. Describe your frustrations/challenges.
• 2. How do you improve communication?
• 3. Relate the experience to school.

Question one is about the experience students went through. Question two asks students to look inward and improve their own experience. Question three asks students to look outward at their school experience. The discussion went very well and it was great to see students pulling this off so eloquently with their peers.

Originally posted: October 1st, 2006 Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:   I didn’t add a blog post for 6 months before this, and quite honestly would never have considered myself a blogger at the time of writing this post. It would be another 2 months before that metamorphosis occurred.   Empowering students is something I get great pleasure out of as my Master’s Paper and Student Leadership Resources demonstrate. It was only after I saw how technology could liberate students as learners that I delved into the world of web2.0 that I am so deeply entrenched in now. What I wasn’t expecting was how much it transformed me as a learner.