First of all, I just read through everyone’s lesson dissemination posts and am so inspired! You all have been doing fantastic things in the classroom with your Kenan work. I hope it also inspires others in your schools and districts.

Like the other DPI fellows have stated, Emily, Sue, and I have been doing a different kind of work for our projects, but it has been satisfying nonetheless. We finished and submitted the survey results presentation for review last week (!!!). I’m actually getting flashbacks right now just thinking about it. Thursday night, I was sitting in front of the computer scrolling mindlessly through the presentation for the billionth time until Nathan dragged me away.

The process wouldn’t have taken as long for some, but because I was tackling the data analysis itself, I had to concurrently learn how to…um…do it. Luckily my fiance is a research scientist and so does this for a living (and, unfortunately for him, always nearby for my million questions–hah!) and was a patient teacher. Even though it was frustrating at the time that what I knew he could do in 10 minutes took me an hour plus, I’m glad to have gone through the process. It taught me patience and made me realize that I’m actually capable of more than I thought I was. Pretty soon, I didn’t need to ask him how to best figure out an equation for what I wanted it to do—I was figuring them out myself. My friend is having to do the same thing right now for her master’s thesis, and I’ve actually been able to help her out with some tips from my experience!

Our big dissemination is still to come—April 8th is the big day for the DPI presentation—but on the same day of the submission, I have already received an email from someone at DPI with initial positive feedback. I truly believe that this will have a direct impact on DPI, and we are lucky that our mentor believed in this project (and us) so much that she is giving us “ins” to make it all happen.

To be honest, when we first received our tablets I was excited but wasn’t sure how it would benefit me. I already had a laptop…and a smartphone…I only saw the tablet as like an in between to those two  for people who just wanted yet another piece of technology 🙂

During my externship, Kenan professional development sessions, and small adult class, I enjoyed using the tablet a lot. I didn’t really use it in my large high school classroom, but I plan to incorporate

Software and apps I loved:

• Evernote: I began using Evernote when we learned about it at NCAAT and have never stopped! I use it as a “journal” for all my Kenan work—I take weekly notes on hours, any miles driven, and what I did on a daily basis. One of my friends who works a lot with long-term, individually-driven projects recommended this as a method to show what I’ve accomplished and what I still need to accomplish, and I’ve found it very beneficial. I also use it to organize meetings notes and on-the-fly ideas.
• Pdf reader/annotation capabilities: Over the summer I read a lot of scholarly articles on survey design and methods. I enjoyed reading these on the tablet and using the stylus to annotate. Now they’re organized and easily accessible when I want to cite them.
• Common Core apps: I found several useful common core standards apps for the tablet that I passed on to my department.
• Recording software: I used the recording software on the tablet to record my ESL students speaking in English; for a lot of them, that was the first time any had heard their voices recorded!
• NEW version of Microsoft Office: so much fun to play with!
• DROPBOX: I did not know about dropbox until the Kenan professional development, and I am totally and completely enamored. I use it to share documents with other teachers in my department and resources for my student teacher. I store all my Kenan docs there so I can access them anywhere, even on my phone. I actually downloaded Dropbox when I cracked my screen and needed to transfer all my documents while it went to the shop to be fixed.

Benefits of tablet:

• Portability: my ESL students loved passing the tablet around to look at pictures that illustrated our conversations. It can also be used to take quality pictures and video in class.
• Quality software and apps
• Training on software and apps by Kenan
• It made me look very official (only half-kidding)
• Lots of possibilities for “flipping” the classroom (haven’t attempted that yet this semester, but there’s always tomorrow!)
• Excellent to have all my Kenan work in one location

Drawbacks:

• Just one, really: I cracked my screen and took it into a repair shop, but it was very difficult for them to get an affordable replacement part (not even the screen—something that goes with the screen). Right now I’m using it by hooking the tablet up to my digital TV until I can get it fixed.
• The keyboard disagreed with me sometimes, but that might have been a personal problem.

Emily, Sue, and I have definitely ended up on a “road less traveled” with this project, and I could not be happier. Our “lesson implementation” certainly had a large audience; we were overjoyed when DPI sent out our survey in its very own email (did you see it? did you see it??). Over 3,700 teachers responded, with over 2,800 useable survey responses.

Therefore, the implementation went better than we could have dreamed. I remember us last summer, fighting tooth and nail to get the survey taken seriously, and we succeeded: it was taken seriously by both DPI and teachers across the state. Not only that, but it is a solid instrument; as we were going through it last night, we realized that every single question showed data that told a story. We will be able to use this story to make solid conclusions about what teachers want from DPI and the state testing program.

Right now we are in the midst of the heavy lifting—using the data analysis to develop a presentation for DPI. Each of us has spent hours pouring over every single word teachers across the state have written us.

p.s.—and this blog is private to Kenan Fellows, right???—DPI just sent out a survey to all NC teachers…..and I think ours is totally more awesome 😀 To be fair, we did spend all summer on it…

Due to having teacher friends from a wide variety of school and meeting Kenan fellows from across the state, I am aware that districts, schools, and individual teachers have a different comfort level when it comes to social media. What is clear is that it is not going away. Districts, schools, teachers, and students therefore have the responsibility to clarify what is and is not acceptable use of social media in an educational setting.

I realized I didn’t actually know our school district’s policy about social media (yikes), so I looked it up. Below are some of the highlights from “CCPS Policy 7335: Employees and Social Media,” which you can access in full here:

“School personnel may use only school-controlled technological resources and social media tools to communicate directly with students… An employee seeking to establish a social networking website for school-related purposes must have prior written approval from the superintendent or designee and principal…Employees are prohibited from knowingly communicating with current students through a personal social network page…”

These rules leave me with more questions than answers. Which social media tools are considered “school controlled”? Would me developing a WordPress blog for my students to check homework need written approval from my principal? What about teachers who have students follow them on Twitter? Even if teachers use a professional Twitter account, students are still using personal accounts, so does that violate the rule?

In the name of willingness to “try new things” (but still working within the vague parameters of our county’s policy), I came up with an idea for my own social media test flight. With one of my classes, I introduced a “class discussion board.” Students could post questions about homework/assessments, comments, additional resources, etc. I would monitor the board from time to time, but would not participate. It was supposed to encourage the development of a class community.

Unfortunately, right after I announced its existence, I went through what I now see as a ridiculously lengthy list of extensively punitive rules. Do NOT use the discussion board to complain about the class. Do NOT reveal homework answers. Do NOT blah blah blah. If you do ANY OF THESE THINGS EVEN ONCE YOU WILL BE BANNED FROM THE DISCUSSION BOARD.

This apparently scared the crap out of all my students and the discussion board pretty much looked like this:

So I tried again. I changed the purpose of the board: students would use it to post interesting resources connecting with our class material—news stories, videos, comics, etc. I guess they decided that they did not have to fear my wrath if they accidentally revealed a homework answer, because they discussion board began to look like this:

Baby steps.

New Year’s Resolution: complete the two blog posts I missed a while back 🙂

Thinking back (way back, it seems) to that October PD….I wish I could have another one! Maybe one this spring? Pretty please? Just kidding. October’s PD really came at the perfect time; I remember receiving a scary graph at one of my first-year-teacher meetings that illustrated beginning teachers’ feelings about their job at various times in the year. I don’t know how “scientific” it is, but I did find the same graph on several sites, so that makes it scientific, right…?

Even though this is specific to first-year teachers, I feel it applies to the veteran teachers I know as well. As the graph shows, we start off the year strong, then our lowest point (“disillusionment,” yikes!) occurs around October/November. So really, by having a PD in October, Kenan chose the exact right time to take us away from the classroom for a second and get us pumped up.

Courtesy of Ellen Moir from the New Teacher Center, although I have seen this graph many times over the years.

The October PD marked a stark contrast in my year. Just a little over a week later, my father passed unexpectedly at the age of 63. This was at the exact time that a big part of our project (the implementation of the statewide survey) was supposed to be happening, but as the Scottish poet Robert Burns said, “the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.” As a result of having to leave school for almost two weeks to help my family, I have had to cut back on so much of what I wanted to accomplish this year, including withdrawing from National Boards. However, I have kept moving forward with the project, and happily, we have experienced success with the survey implementation (almost 4,000 responses!!! ahh!!!!) and have great plans for our next steps.

I talked to my father a lot about the Kenan research project and sought his advice with it. As a man of science raising a bunch of humanities-oriented kids, he was beyond thrilled that I was doing something so….science-y. With all the hard work still left to go on this project–writing up a manuscript for publication, putting together presentations and an FAQ for DPI–it is nice to have the comfort that me doing this meant something to him.

First of all, I have to say that I feel really lucky for having Dr. Tammy Howard as my mentor—Emily, Sue, and I have talked about it often. She is a busy woman at the head of accountability–one of the busiest (if not THE busiest) departments at DPI, and, by taking on a group of teachers as her mentees, I believe she made a strong statement about her investment in teachers.

Tammy used to be a teacher, and it shows. We were amazed that we got the chance to sit in her office (the head office!) and tell her our REAL opinions about the MSLs! It speaks to what kind of person she is that we felt like we could be candid with her. I saw throughout the summer that she treats her staff the same way; she was always patient, friendly, and had a kind word and a moment for everyone, even though every minute of her day is double scheduled to the minute. In addition to being kind, it is immediately apparent that she is extraordinarily intelligent and capable at her job, which made it even more of an honor that she wanted to hear our perspective as teachers.

We did a lot of work independently while in the office, which was challenging at first. However, I ended up seeing this as an asset, because she took the time to set us up for success beforehand. She arranged for us to have a cubicle right in the middle of the department, so I got to network with those in the surrounding cubicles. We were expected to be in the office daily full-time (with, of course, concessions for our different summer schedules), which became an opportunity to get to know the people, the building, events going on, and Raleigh in general. I also learned what a real commute is like (and am thankful to be back to my 15-minute drive on empty roads).

Most invaluably, she also set us up meetings during our first week of the summer with some of the major players in accountability, curriculum, and test development, which meant when I had questions, I could go up to people who already knew my face (and even more importantly, who knew that I was working with Tammy, which was honestly sometimes necessary to make things happen!). As I was working on developing the draft of our initial survey, I also formed a relationship with a sort of second mentor, a DPI statistician named Charles Lanier who Tammy recommended I collaborate with. He helped me through the entire process and was such a positive influence that I plan on including his name in our project’s credits.

By our final meeting, Tammy commented on the fact that I seemed to be on a first-name basis with half the office (oh, well Charles and I were discussing that possibility….yes, Jennifer had asked about that…). Basically, I felt like I had an office full of mentors, all with different perspectives, personalities, and specialties. I also feel like the independence has created a strong team among Emily, Sue, and I, which has been an asset to keeping the project moving, especially now that we’re out of the office and back in the classroom.

Emily, Sue, and I have a lot of work ahead of us—the survey we are implementing, which is gathering teacher opinions on the MSLs and DPI in general, is going into the email boxes of every NC teacher on Monday (!!!!!!!). Once the teachers take it (please take it!!!), we will be analyzing all the data and creating products to share our results with both DPI and teachers. I feel confident that this project will have an interesting, useful, and positive impact, and we couldn’t have done it without Tammy’s smart orchestration of our independence. She has also taken the time in the past month to ensure that our survey is going out on time in the exact way it needs to be in order to ensure validity and as high a response as possible. This would have never been possible without her intervention.  

This is the department of accountability’s first year having Kenan Fellows in the office, and I hope they do so again. As I wrote in an earlier post, I think we need more DPI “Teacher Ambassadors,” and Tammy, along with the rest of the department, really came through in making that happen. I can’t wait to see them all again to present them with our final results.

Before I started this blog post, I read through everyone’s entries on their “something learned” that would impact students—all the posts are so inspiring, and I can feel the positive energy!

I am actually surprised how much my instructional plans are changing this year. Since my externship mainly involves working with teachers, I wasn’t sure how much it would translate into my teaching right away. However, thanks to both talking with and getting ideas from you all and the professional development we received, I am more willing to try out more nontraditional ideas in the classroom. 

Three things I have already tried out this week that have been very successful while still keeping my classroom orderly, focused, and peaceful:

1. The first one was minor, yet representative of this year’s change, and it all started from a mild disappointment. I was moved (not my choice) to a much smaller room, and had to figure out how to fit 28 desks in a way that would accomodate 18 year olds! This is a rough view of what some of my coworkers and I came up with:

This picture doesn’t really tell the whole story of the seats, which are carefully angled and staggered to create the most space possible. My coworkers came and helped me design it after I kept hanging out in their rooms to plan because I didn’t even want to look at mine.

In six years of teaching, I have always had my desks facing front in straight rows. This new method lets me be really “in” the classroom instead of just standing in front of it. It’s much more squished than my old room, but I’ve taken to calling it “cozy.”

2. Making sure that students have a chance to move at least once EVERY CLASS (except on test days). I’ve thought of very simple ways to do this, like: I had a students do a quickwrite related to that day’s lesson. Then, instead of just discussing as a class, I had them get up and give it to someone on the other side of the room. They wrote a response to that student’s quickwrite and wrote down further ideas for that person to consider. Then I had them get up and trade again. By the time it came to class discussion, they had gotten two chances to stretch their legs (important during a 90-minute block, yikes) and warm up to the discussion. I ended up getting MANY more hands raised than I usually do at first.  

3. Attaching short, creative activities to more standard assignments. For example, after an analysis assignment on the essay “Homeless” by Anna Quindelin, I had students grab colored paper and some art supplies–that I made sure I am fully stocked with this year–and had them write the word “shelter,” draw whatever they associated with “shelter,” and then write down words and phrases they associated with it. I then had them turn the paper over and do the same thing on the back with the word “Homeless.” Each student then did a short presentation of why they picked what they did for both sides (this and grabbing the art supplies was their stand-up for the day). This actually turned out to be VERY valuable and had the students realize stuff about themselves and their assumptions about others that informed our discussion of the article.

I deeply appreciate being able to make connections with talented teachers across the state who shared how they use innovative classroom techniques to help students. This week has taken a lot of extra work on my part, but I’m loving it. Next stop, more technology (maaaaybe after I catch up on all this grading…)!

I had been putting off my Ah-Hah! moment post for a while because I wasn’t sure which of the million moments to write about, but the past few days have given the words to me.

I was going into this school year so excited about all the possibilities for further change at my school. We as a school have been working so hard during the past few years to make our school truly great: academic strength, high expectations, a responsible student body, and teachers and administrators who respect each other and band together in the face of adversity. And it works! Today I saw the data that showed my school’s composite EOC scores have gone up over TWENTY PERCENT in the past five years (which is, not coincidentally, the exact amount of time our principal has been at our school….). And all that’s WITHOUT one bit of prescribed curriculum and WITH complete respect for us teachers. 

And then, two evenings ago, he sent us an e-mail: he is leaving our school and moving up to a position at the county level. Since every staffer loves him just as much as I do, we have been absolutely devastated. Our school completely turned around when he came, and I think the announcement brought forth fears that it would go back to the way it was before he walked through the door. I got texts and e-mails of sadness and disappointment all night from my colleagues.

The morning after this announcement was made was when Vicky and I had to do our presentation about the Kenan Fellows program. Both of our hearts were heavy and we didn’t know how it would go. How could we be cheerleaders about this program during this time?

We presented. And we were cheerleaders. And talked about how we could use the fellowship to enact change. And guess what? I think the staff found it interesting. Vicky described the benefits of the fellowship and why our teachers should get involved, and I proposed to form a cohort of teachers from our school to take the Seize the Data class we learned about this summer.

Since then, several teachers have come to ask me about how they can apply to be a Kenan Fellow. And several more have asked to be part of the data class cohort, which is more than I expected! 

So I guess this is the Ah Hah! moment I’ve experienced transitioning from the summer externship back to school life. Sometimes we feel like we can’t make significant changes from our position as classroom teachers: that we have to be promoted into other levels of education, or rely on other higher-ups to do it for us. Our principal has been wonderful, and good school leadership is essential, but teachers supporting each other and being willing and able to speak up for ourselves is essential too. The Kenan Fellowship helps teachers see that this is possible, which is probably a huge reason as to why 95% of Kenan Fellow alumni stay in education.

How cool is it that, through a brief presentation, Vicky and I were able to spread a little of that around during a tough time.

Well, anyway, to all the awesome Kenan Fellows:

Credit: Nestle Corp.

To explain how this summer will impact my students, I would like the begin with a story. 

For some reason when I first started high school, I got placed in “advanced” math, which moved at a dizzying pace (I have a theory that kids who excel at certain parts of school are just assumed to excel at ALL parts of school, and so are placed ipso facto into solid advanced classes). All I could think to do was write down every word the teacher said, but none of it made any sense when it came time to do my homework. After a few weeks of this, I began to get extremely anxious about math class. How could I ask questions if I had no idea what was going on? During tests, all the studying I did somehow did not seem to apply to even one test question. (A now-hilarious and then-miserable memory: memorizing the acronym SOHCAHTOA for a geometry test, forgetting it all during the test and thinking that no, it was supposed to be SACAGAWEA, and spending the rest of the time trying to figure out what SACAGAWEA stood for.)

SohCahToa graphic designed by teacher Luke Miller. This still makes 0% sense. Please do not try to explain it to me; I am an adult and I celebrate that nobody can make me learn it anymore.

Sacagewea, from the U.S. Postal Service. She does not look like a math equation.

Fortunately, I was switched down into the “standard” class, which I did fine in because the tests were exactly like the study guide, we got graded on the completeness of our notes, and I was one of the only people in class who actually paid attention instead of being weird (the guy who sat behind me tried to bite my neck once???) and/or disruptive and/or sleeping. However, the anxiety remained.

Due to my very different humanities and music brain, by senior year I had a whole semester’s worth of AP college credit and some music and academic scholarships. But one thing stood between me and the colleges I wanted to go to: completing the PRECALCULUS REQUIREMENT. After much sorrow and gnashing of teeth, a tiny note from my teacher appeared on my yet another 0% quiz: “re-take at home.” Relieved, I took it home, sat at the kitchen table, and realized I could breathe and think again. I passed the quiz. With the individual help of my teacher and the math tutor he suggested my parents get for me, I ended up passing the class. Now, I would never let kids takes tests home to re-take them, but I think my teacher did that because he was creating a kind of post hoc separate-setting accommodation that I might have received on a 504 if I was attending school now. 

So now flash forward to this summer: even as an adult, the thought of math–even seeing a bunch of numbers on a board!– makes my chest feel tight, and I have stayed as far away from it as possible. Imagine my surprise when—and I still have no idea how this ended up happening—my Kenan project has ended up being completely research-based. I consulted with a statistician in the department (who has awesomely become like my second mentor) who made it clear that in order to turn the results into something valid and meaningful, there would have to be statistical analysis. Immediately I got that familiar chest-tightening feeling. 

I began to work through some introductory statistics online tutorials, and I realized something. Everything I learned I actually understood because I was constantly working out how I could apply it to my actual research project. For the first time in my life, Standard Deviation made sense because I knew how I would use it and why it would be effective.

My fellowship notebook, including lots of notes on the statistics I need to understand for my project. This is the exact stuff that, in my bottom-of-the-barrel “Numeracy for Humanities Majors”–seriously, that’s what it was called–class I took in college, made me tear up while handing in my final exam, making the professor extremely uncomfortable.

Math made sense and it did not cause me anxiety because it wasn’t a random word problem my textbook was torturing me with at 3 a.m.; it was something I was applying at every single step.

This made me think about my students who probably get that tightening in their chest when they think about reading and/or writing. I have had many students tell me that my class was the first English class they ever succeeded in, and the first class where they made it to the end of a book. I think this is because I structure my class in a way that I hope makes them comfortable enough to believe they can do it: I rely on predictability in grading, homework, and classroom routines; scaffolding tougher material while throwing in some stuff they already feel confident doing; and a ton of encouragement.

But during our transition to Common Core (and all through our Kenan professional development this summer!) I keep hearing: change the routine! Minimal direct instruction! Put your students in UNCOMFORTABLE SITUATIONS where they have to GRAPPLE with the material! Um, my struggling readers are in an uncomfortable situation whenever they open their books; is my goal really to make them MORE uncomfortable?

However, finally being successful in math by learning through application made me think that perhaps there IS a way to introduce tough material with less direct instruction to struggling students and making them—if not “uncomfortable”—at least placed in situations where they are having to deal with a brand-new challenge. If we deviated sometimes from the background lecture-read-analyze-activity-assessment cycle of the traditional English class, if we helped students through independent and group applications to create something they find meaningful, connected to the world, and non-arbitrary….could that make the same difference for some kids as this made for me?

I wish part of all this was realizing exactly how to DO that with my students, but I guess that would be too easy! I dunno….do you all have any ideas? School’s going to start before we know it!

“The problem’s plain to see
Too much technology
Machines to save our lives
Machines, de-humanize…”
-“Mr. Roboto,” Styx

For some reason in middle school I was obsessed with Styx, especially the song “Mr. Roboto.” I think my friends and I were the only 13-year-olds at their reunion tour.

As some others have already posted, there isn’t really an inherent connection between implementation of Common Core/Essential Standards and the success or failure of technology in the classroom. I do have to admit: when I saw the increased rigor and deeper analysis that the ELA Common Core rested upon, I had an excited vision of laptops closed, books open, and the class being guided by sticky notes, pencils, and old-fashioned face-to-face discussion. In fact, it was during one of those scenarios this past year that I got the BEST review from my principal ever! He said I was doing a great job implementing the rigor and complexity of the Common Core Standards. Sure I didn’t use technology–that time– but it should not be an every second, every day requirement. I was confident an administrator would return during a meaningful use of technology. There was no reason to put on, as one of the other posters hilariously referred to it as, a “dog and pony show.”

I have realized that there is no need to be an alarmist that there is “too much technology” in the classroom (hear that, Styx??). The world is changing, and in order to prepare my students not only for the Common Core, but for successful LIVES, it is my duty to keep abreast of new technology so I can thoughtfully choose meaningful resources to enhance my curriculum.

HOWEVER—and this is huge—it is also our job to allow students to think without technology in order to truly meet the lofty goals of the Common Core. Sometimes they need to “grapple with the text” (buzzword!) using their own brains and each other’s. Sometimes googling the answer limits the scope of all possibilities of what the answer COULD be.

When used thoughtfully, technology enhances the curriculum.

When used thoughtfully, Common Core enhances the curriculum.

Let’s use both thoughtfully, and neither for lip service.

To conclude, a happy Lenovo tablet story! My adult ESL and basic education students have LOVED using the tablet with me during our night classes this summer. Most are not yet computer literate, and the tablet is much less intimidating than a desktop. Last night, the ESL students used the tablet to tape each other during speaking practice.

My assistant Connor using the tablet to record Lan talking about what it takes to be considered an ethical person.

They then listened back to their conversation (none of them had ever heard their recorded voice before!) and wrote down what to fix. For the FIRST TIME, they were able to realize what they need to fix to allow people to understand them better. Since I’ve been teaching some of them for almost three years, this is BIG. Success!