Category Archives: Learning

I want to share an absolutely fascinating thing that just happened with Harvey and Susan at Thoughtful Classroom. As adult learners, we took the learning styles test last evening and we haven’t looked at it yet today. After lunch, Harvey and Susan ask us to look at Guernica, by Pablo Picasso and then jot down whatever occurs to us, what we see, thoughts or ideas. We are asked to write 5-7 things that we think.

During my couple of minutes I write:

• What’s wrong with that poor man on the right?
• What horrible thing is occurring to cause this depth of despair in the world?
• Is the light at the top causing their pain or is it a way out of the pain and suffering?
• What is the significance of the handheld light, like a candle?

Lois writes:

1. Anger
2. Deformed
3. Death
4. Black/white
5. Humans/animals
6. War

Here’s the super cool thing about this activity. Lois is primarily a mastery learner, meaning that her learning style is good at working with and remembering facts and details. I am primarily an understanding learner, meaning that my learning style is curious about ideas, has a high tolerance for theory and abstraction. The Thoughtful Classroom learning style inventory says that my learning style is constantly asking “Why?” and that the questions tend to be provocative and probing.

Without any idea where the activity was going, Lois and I were completely true to our learning styles! Imagine how much less I would have liked this activity if I was forced to answer according to Lois’ learning style or Lois to mine. The note making activity described next allows us to take our students to another level, one on which they can make their notes more meaningful.

This is so powerful in its implications for reaching more students because it allows us to teach them the strategies they need to learn that are unknown to so many of them.

I’m at Thoughtful Classroom in Salamanca, learning with David Smith, our Middle School Principal, and three terrific teachers, Lois Piscitelli, Andrea Geist, and Kris Ruzycki. We are learning from Harvey Silver and Susan Morris and it is an incredible learning opportunity for me, providing a framework about many of the things I’ve known for seventeen years in education and other things that I haven’t ever heard before. One of the best parts is that Harvey and Susan are modeling all of the best strategies with us–we’re learning about learning in a practical, meaningful way.

Teachers are learning about creating thoughtful classrooms and I’m constantly translating that to my role in creating thoughtful schools in a thoughtful district. What more important goal could I have as assistant superintendent? What better gain could our district garner from this new administrative position?

This is different from other professional development opportunities I’ve been involved in because we five have agreed to embark on three years of sustained learning, experimenting and sharing. We are learning strategies for engagement, making students the center of our learning. I keep following two perspectives: one as a teacher and one as an administrator. I don’t think that’s a bad thing because as an administrator I should definitely do a better job of planning meetings with teachers as learners, remembering that they need the same things that our kids need.

I’m totally stoked about the opportunities I have before me as an assistant superintendent. If I had to choose a theme for my leadership I would steal the idea presented by Harvey and Susan regarding meaningful professional development of “Teachers Talking to Teachers About Teaching”. I love that I can really focus on learning, creating a climate and culture K-12 where we all share our ideas and learning with one another, visiting each other’s classrooms and talking about our strengths, our best ideas, and brainstorming. I’m excited about this shift and my part in it.

I would love to take care of the first year teacher training. I think it should be all about this Thoughtful Classroom learning, including responsibility for teaching strategies at the sessions with the mentors and the new teachers. And extending this for the next two years, focusing on learning with our probationary teachers. Thoughtful Classroom with Harvey and Susan includes sustained learning for our five and building learning clubs beyond our five to other teachers. I’m just thinking I’ll have the ability and the responsibility to take it beyond to other teachers. Can’t imagine that there’s anything more important for new teachers than what I’m learning right here, right now.

Cross posted at LeaderTalk

When we ask the interview question of “what are your thoughts on the uses of technology in education?”, I have a preconceived notion of what I want to hear that is never met. I’m happy if the candidate even talks about it from a general point of view on the uses in instruction or adding to the curriculum. I’m unhappy when they say they like technology, or power point, or palm pilots and that it’s the wave of the future. Tell me what you’re going to use, where and how, and let it be something new, maybe even something I’ve never heard of before. It’s not the wave of the future, unless of course, I’ve regressed and it’s actually 1985 again. It’s today.

Which leads me to this post by Will Richardson about twitter. I don’t get it, I’m trying to get it, and I doubt I’ll actually go give it a try. I’m clueless about twitter, but NOT completely clueless because of Will’s post and the other tidbits I’ve been reading through my RSS feeds. What I’m loving is that I can read about something entirely foreign and new to me and that I can begin to ponder the implications it may have for my own learning and for education. This is what I need my teachers to be doing–reading the ideas of others and challenging their own ideas–LEARNING.

I’m at High School’s New Face this week, a cutting edge conference in Ellicottville, New York. I’ll be blogging about it all week from the perspective of a conference participant in the Personalizing Learning strand with Monte Selby and Tony Limoges. If you are interested in the vision of education in Western New York, you can check back here for the blog posts or better yet, go to the HSNF website to catch the streaming video. Today is a set up day for all of the BOCES staff development and tech experts and I’m lucky to be here helping with set up.

This is the same conference I attended last year where I learned about and started blogging with Will Richardson. It was the best learning experience I’ve had in many years so these guys have some big shoes to fill.

My hope is that blogging about the conference will help share the learning with others who are interested in improvement in education. We have 48 high school teams attending, four people on each team. Our Gowanda team arrives tomorrow–hope they’re ready for a week of learning, including an opportunity to challenge their thinking.  Looking forward to seeing you–Joe, Barb, Beth, and Amy from G-Town and all of our participants from across Western New York.

What if all of our efforts in the area of school improvement only make things better for the kids who would have stayed with us anyway? Maybe our mastery level of 85-100 is improving while our drop out rate remains consistent because we just keep doing what already doesn’t work for our drop outs, only we’re doing it better?

I’m serious. We’ve made improvements in G-Town. Maybe none of them changed anything for our drop-outs.

Here’s another thing that  struck me about Will Richardson’s post the other day. I guess it was Will’s last question that led me again down a road I’ve been traveling for a few weeks. Will was talking about the emotional side of online learning and he says,

And why we need to teach our kids how to build networks of trusted sources they can turn to themselves for intellectual and emotional support in the process. But how can we do that if we ourselves don’t?

I’m more convinced than ever that it’s a mistake when we ask teachers to blog with students when they haven’t blogged professionally themselves. Therein lies the answer–if teachers see how much they gain through the on-line learning available in this community, they’ll want their students to experience the same thing. However, when our teachers employ blogging as another strategy without “owning it”, they end up using it much as pen and paper activities, just on the blog. And who has it figured out that we’re missing the boat?–our high school students. Teachers who jump into using the blog as a place for students to respond only to them miss the depth and social connections available, BEYOND the teacher. Our kids end up seeing blogging as another teacher thing, not even equating it with what they’re currently doing on their own. Teachers need to blog for their own learning first, then they will fully understand the opportunities available to their students. And they won’t miss a great opportunity.