“Let your mind wander in the pure and simple. Be one with the infinite. Let all things take their course.”
-Chuanng Tzu
Often times we want to be in control of everything: our thoughts, dreams, and desires. However as Chuanng Tzu points out in today’s quote sometimes it’s okay to let go of our thoughts and let our minds wander. As they say, nature has a way of letting all things take their course. By no means is this an easy task because for most of us it is very difficult to have our brains shut off, even when we go to sleep. We just need to remind ourselves that it is ok to do so. It isn’t like we relinquish control we will never get it back. We will. Sometimes all we need to do is just step back and let things ride as it pertains to our minds. It is a good way to recharge ourselves too.
What does this quote mean to you and how can you apply today’s message towards managing yourself better?
A Centered Life Becoming The Change Self-Awareness “A centered life is one that is grounded in your core values rather than changing based on the most recent trend, compliment, or outside expectation.”
-Dr. Thema Bryant
If you heard the phrase “a centered life” what comes to mind? Someone that is focused? Someone who is locked in on their lives? Self-aware? All of these would be correct. As Dr. Thema Bryant points out in today’s quote a centered life means we are grounded. In other words, we don’t let our hopes and dreams lose sight of what is right in front of us. It serves as a sort of reality check. She mentions core values. This is your moral fiber essentially. It is the hill you are willing to die on for what it is you believe in and stand for.
When we are grounded in these core values no amount of persuasion such as keeping up with Joneses, what someone says about you (whether it is positive or negative), or even beyond the realm of what it is possible can sway your thinking. Why? Because you are focused on the here and now and understand if things don’t align with your own core values then it isn’t worth your attention in the first place.
What does this quote mean to you and how can you apply today’s message toward improving your self-awareness?
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Believe it or not, and I am constantly surprised by the number of educators who don’t believe it, the research is clear on all of the ways that students’ success, creativity, and growth are harmed by extrinsic motivators. This leaves many educators, including my research partner, Kristy Graber, and me, searching for ways to eliminate rewards while equipping students with the gear needed to strengthen these areas. This can be especially challenging considering how prevalent rewards are in daily life. Here is the last portion of our research paper that I have condensed into a blog post.
SHE’S GOT A SMILE THAT IT SEEMS TO ME
Creative thinking is not just for the arts, though fine arts classes and programs in schools are generally safe havens of creativity. Rather, all grade levels and content areas need to be welcoming ports for creative thinking. One way in which teachers can create these ports and safe havens is by teaching “perseverance in the face of obstacles and moderate risk-taking” (Sternberg and Lubart, p. 231). These two attributes will carry students forward in life and help them strive for success, even when they may not be rewarded for their attempts or accomplishments. Ideally, students will come to realize that creative thinking often leads to problem-solving, and problem-solving leads to student success and self-confidence.
REMINDS ME OF CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
Kohn also discussed ways to foster intrinsic motivation, a critical component of creativity. He offers five recommendations to improve students’ motivation; allow for active learning, give the reason for an assignment, elicit their curiosity, set an example, and welcome mistakes, thus encouraging moderate risk-taking (2018, pp. 211-212). By following these guidelines, students should become more interested in their education and hopefully find greater intrinsic motivation for learning, leading to more creative performance. Kohn also claimed that educators do not need to try to motivate students using extrinsic motivators, “Given an environment in which they don’t feel controlled and in which they are encouraged to think about what they are doing (rather than how well they are doing it), students of any age will generally exhibit an abundance of motivation and a healthy appetite for challenge” (p. 199). Incorporating collaboration, content, and choice into pedagogy is what Kohn offers educators as a substitute for rewards. In fact, Kohn states that choice, above all else, is necessary to promote intrinsic motivation (p. 252), and therefore also creativity.
WHERE EVERYTHING WAS AS FRESH AS THE BRIGHT BLUE SKY
The importance of student voice and choice is not new to educators, and research supports it. Similar to Kohn, Pink recommends teachers provide students with autonomy in task, time, technique, and team to allow for increased intrinsic motivation (Pink, p. 92). Pink elaborated on Ryan and Deci’s description of autonomy as ”acting with choice” when he noted that “A sense of autonomy has a powerful effect on individual performance and attitude” (p. 88). By embedding these components into their pedagogy, teachers will help students find greater intrinsic interest in their learning, which will support their creative thinking and performance.
NOW AND THEN WHEN I SEE HER FACE
While research has made it clear that the effects of extrinsic motivation are harmful to the creativity of students, however, as we also discovered, there is no easy answer to the one best way to combat the damaging effects rewards have on student creativity. And to make matters more difficult for teachers who are trying to foster creativity and intrinsic motivation in their students, there are other barricades that teachers face daily. Problems quickly arise due to practices of reward systems that are implemented building-wide or baring that, the reward practices of the teacher just down the hall or in the next classroom.
SHE TAKES ME AWAY TO THAT SPECIAL PLACE
One big one that is outside the control of teachers, for the most part, is the reward-based programs such as the Positive Behavior Intervention System (PBIS), which is used by many districts in the United States. While dealing with these programs can be challenging for teachers as they work to decrease the use of rewards within their own classroom, it is achievable. Kampylis and Berki introduce creative thinking to educators as, “the thinking that enables students to apply their imagination to generating ideas, questions and hypotheses, experimenting with alternatives, and to evaluating their own and their peers’ ideas, final products and processes” (2014, p. 6). Thinking of it in these terms may help teachers build creative capacity within their students. There are other barriers besides school-wide reward systems and the teacher down the hall. Teacher turnover can also play a role in this inability to provide students with a stable learning environment that promotes creative thinking as well. We also must reconcile with the fact that rewards are relatively cheap and easy to implement, so finding the time and energy to plan, create, and implement activities and systems to promote creative thinking and nurture student intrinsic motivation can be difficult for teachers, especially as we navigate through the pandemic. The teacher shortage has only complicated this problem further since positions are more frequently filled by long-term subs or unqualified applicants who may rely on rewards to survive the year or as they learn classroom management and work toward certification.
AND IF I STARE TOO LONG, I’D PROBABLY BREAK DOWN AND CRY
In fact, the sustainability of student creativity is now and long has been a battleground in education. The problem stems from the fact that even though there is ample evidence that shows the importance of creative thinking (e.g. Hennessey, 2002; Sternberg and Lubart, 1993; Eisenberger & Shanock, 2003; Lepper, Corpus & Iyengar), teachers regularly rely on practices, like rewards, that hinder student creativity. Swanson’s (1995) own research touched on this by noting “Ann Bogianno (Bogianno, 1978), found that teachers and parents accept the notion that offering and withdrawing rewards produces good results, better than any other teaching strategy” (p. 44). Despite that prevailing belief, the research does not lie. After his review of the research literature, Kohn (2018) concluded that “it is simply not possible to bribe people to be creative” (p. 344). As teachers, we know that regardless of how many ways to promote creativity are presented, the fact that rewards show immediate gains will always put the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations at odds unless we find a balance, or in other words, reach Ryan and Deci’s nexus. As Kohn points out, “most studies have found that unexpected rewards are much less destructive than the rewards people are told about beforehand and are deliberately trying to obtain” (p. 53), so the unexpected reward here and there will minimize the destruction of student intrinsic motivation, yet help the teacher who believes strongly in rewards still achieve balance.
WHOA, OH, OH SWEET CHILD O’ MINE
Those who have reached this point of this blog are now more awake to the power of creativity, what can diminish it, and why the world needs it. There is no succinct answer for how to fully cultivate creativity and intrinsic motivation in the classroom and beyond. However, it is good to contemplate the words of the great basketball coach, Phil Jackson, who said, “You can’t force your will on people. If you want them to act differently, you need to inspire them to change themselves” (Jackson, 2013, p. 16). Carrots and sticks do not create the environment that creativity and intrinsic motivation need in order to thrive. Just being aware of the effect rewards have on students and putting in place some of the practices mentioned here will help alleviate the negative effects of rewards on your students, and will also be a giant step forward toward finding that nexus.
HEADINGS USED ARE PARTIAL LYRICS FROM SWEET CHILD OF MINE BY GUNS AND ROSES
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As I prepared my room for the new school year back in August, I did a lot of thinking about the hallway bulletin board that is under my control. I hate doing bulletin boards, generally speaking. A joke I often make is that I chose to teach high school in order to avoid having to create bulletin board displays. Then a Facebook ad crossed my feed (clearly big tech is reading my mind now ) about buying (for a lot of money) bulletin board-sized color sheets.
ONE WAY, OR ANOTHER, I’M GONNA FIND YA
Hmmm. While I didn’t want to spend over $60, I was intrigued. I discussed my idea for the bulletin board with a colleague, and she suggested I find color sheets online or from a book (I actually have some adult or more complex coloring books), scan or download the pages I want, then email them to the secretary to print on the poster printer in the office, so I did. The secretary was intrigued with my idea also, so she helped me refine my choices for the first three that would be on the board. When selecting the color sheets, it is important to make sure that any material from online sources is free to use and not copyrighted or restricted, so I searched carefully.
This picture was taken right after set up. I adjusted it a bit later to even out the spacing and height alignment.
I’M GONNA GET YA, GET YA, GET YA, GET YA
I envisioned a fun design, a tiger-related one (the school mascot is a tiger), and then a whimsical one. I did my best on the search, sent them to the secretary, and asked her nicely to print 3 vertical large poster-sized color sheets which I evenly-ish spaced on the board. And just like that, hallway magic was born. Well, it took a hot minute for students to realize that the bulletin board message, “Color Me,” actually meant they could color on it. A few staff members were also intrigued, and they wanted to color on it as well. It was decided, however, that the honor for the first coloring should go to the students, so we watched and waited then rejoiced when the first tiny piece of one of my chosen three was colored during the first week of school.
This picture was taken during the second week of school. The tiger was the first to get colored.
ONE WAY, OR ANOTHER, I’M GONNA WIN YA
There are a few negatives to consider when putting up an interactive bulletin board display like this one. Be prepared for the possibility that some students will draw or write something inappropriate on it. That hasn’t happened yet on mine, but when it does, I have my black Sharpie ready. Another drawback is that students are sneaking in a coloring moment on the way to or from the bathrooms during instructional time, and they could take too long when coloring during passing periods, causing them to be tardy to class. We have a lot of students stay after school for various clubs and tutoring, so I have noticed that the bulk of coloring is done during that time. So far I have not experienced any negatives, but I am aware and prepared for them. Those possible negatives did not prevent me from trying this. As George Couros, learner, author, and keynote speaker reminds us,
I’M GONNA GET YA, GET YA, GET YA, GET YA
So prepare but push forward with ideas for interactive bulletin boards. To have an impact, the content needs to stay fresh or people in general, students in this case, stop looking at it. The idea for a coloring bulletin board is to allow students to relax and enjoy creating something fun and beautiful that can be enjoyed by many. Coloring is a fun way to de-stress for a few minutes, and that positive should definitely be so loud that the negatives are all but silent. I believe the best surprise from creating this type of bulletin board is how many teachers and paraprofessionals have been coloring here and there also. That is an impact that goes beyond my original idea, though the company advertising for bulletin board-sized coloring sheets did show their product in offices and hospitals too, so I should not have been surprised when a teacher confessed to coloring a tiny part, or when a para told me she had brought in more colored pencils so that she could have options when she colored on it.
This picture was taken during the 6th week of school.
ONE WAY, OR ANOTHER, I’M GONNA SEE YA
As interactive bulletin boards go, this is a winner. Once a color sheet is finished, I will laminate it and hang it in the hallway. Low prep with a high yield is something that I am always looking for and embracing when I find it, and when I find it, I share it. Already tried this? Great! Tag me on Twitter at @SteinbrinkLaura and share out your Color Me board.
SECTION HEADINGS ARE PARTIAL LYRICS FROM ONE WAY OR ANOTHER BY BLONDIE.
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“You cannot teach today the same way you did yesterday to prepare students for tomorrow.”
John Dewey
In order to best prepare our students, educators need to be comfortable with taking some risks in the classroom. Whether by trying new ideas, embracing new tools, or shifting their role to more of a facilitator, we need to promote more student-driven learning. The benefits are that students are more connected to what they are learning and they become curious about the next steps in their learning journey.
When students are curious about learning, they become more invested in the process. Sparking curiosity will lead students to become problem solvers and critical thinkers and shift from being simply consumers to becoming creators and innovators. To bring these opportunities to our classrooms, we must first engage students in learning. But how?
Understanding student engagement
A few years ago, I noticed a decrease in student engagement in my own classroom. I tried a variety of learning activities and tools to offer more choices for my students, however, I did not see much improvement in student engagement. I realized that part of the problem was that I did not fully understand what student engagement meant. By not providing enough choices for my students and promoting more student-driven learning, I was missing some key components that would increase autonomy and motivation for learning.
While students had some choices in the types of projects they would create and the tools they could use, I was not providing open-ended, student-driven learning experiences made possible through methods like project-based learning (PBL). We want to increase student engagement in learning and this happens when students feel a sense of ownership in the learning or control in the choices they make for their learning journey. Without sustained engagement, students will not make significant progress in their learning environment. Once I started to do PBL in my classroom and involved students more in making decisions and driving their learning, student engagement increased and they became more curious about what they were learning.
Boosting Engagement and Curiosity
As educators, it is important to continue to reflect on our practice and make time to learn about student interests. By providing a variety of ways for students to show what they have learned and by using methods like PBL, we will foster student agency, boost engagement and increase student motivation in learning. Students need opportunities to dive into learning experiences that will stretch their thinking and place them in the lead. When we create learning experiences like PBL that will more meaningfully engage students with the content, while moving them from consumers to creators, it increases student engagement and positively impacts student achievement.
The impact of PBL
PBL was the topic of a recent Twitter chat. Educators shared their ideas about the benefits of PBL and the connection between PBL and SEL. Educator Laura Steinbrink said “PBL to me means learning is fun, hands-on, non-traditional, and tailored to each student. It means the learning can get deeper than traditional assignments and become an amazing EXPERIENCE.” Craig Shapiro believes that PBL means “risk taking – collaboration – socialization – mentoring.”
Through PBL, students find out about themselves and their interests. They invest more in and become curious about what they are learning and where they will go next on their learning journey.
Lynnae Ryberg sees many benefits from PBL. “PBL means giving students a different medium to show what they know. Not all students are great at tests, but they know the content. Offering them another avenue to show their mastery allows for confidence, critical thinking, and engagement.” These are skills that we want our students to build because they will help them to be successful in the future. Rob Abraham finds that “Communication is one of the most important skills in PBL. In standard classrooms, students often sit passively. In PBL activities, students not only communicate with their partners but present to the class.” Students need more active learning experiences that lead to sharing their work with others.
Connecting PBL and SEL
There are so many ways to address SEL in our classrooms. Amy De Friese values the connection between PBL and SEL. She says that through PBL “there will be real-world problem-solving applications in play. Teachable SEL moments = building community, creating avenues for communication, and reacting to challenges.”
Mark Ureel says that we need to “allow PBL to be self-paced and allow for flexibility. A great project can be modified and still achieve its objectives.” For some educators, it can be scary to get started with PBL because it places students in the lead more and it has many moving parts, but it is of tremendous value for learning. As Cori Frede shared, “Since PBL takes students out of their comfort zone, it gives teachers the opportunity to encourage self-monitoring, collaboration, and more.” These are the essential SEL skills that PBL helps students to build.
As educators, PBL can help us learn more about our students’ passions and interests. We should continue finding ways to create unique, authentic, and meaningful opportunities for students to explore their interests in a way that connects them and prepares them for whatever they decide to do in the future. Use a hook, try a new method, do something completely different than what you have been doing, or ask students for their ideas. By cultivating a learning environment where students feel valued and choosing the right tools to facilitate methods like PBL, it will have a positive impact on student learning and foster the development of many essential skills.
iBlocks sparks student curiosity
When students are curious about learning, their motivation increases as they engage more with the content. With iBlocks, students can explore many topics that connect them with real-world learning experiences. The best thing about using iBlocks is that students can engage in learning that is authentic, meaningful, and personalized for them. Teachers can use this to start conversations with students to help them to develop self-awareness and self-management skills.
Teaching the content is important, but finding ways to spark student curiosity for learning is also important. With iBlocks, students have what they need to explore topics of interest, to design their learning journey, and use their student workbook as a space to gather their thoughts, add reflections, and share brainstorming of their work.
Using the different iBlocks, there are options for students in areas that match their interests. Students will enjoy creating, and sharing and will become increasingly curious about other interests and different perspectives. With these learning tools and PBL, educator Melody McAllister says that “learning is real, it sticks, & will be something students remember the most when they look back. It also creates skills they need for life & career!”
We must continue to look for innovative and student-driven activities to best prepare them for the future. How do we help students to develop an appreciation of the process of learning itself? We foster independent, student-driven learning through PBL. Because PBL is an iterative process, students will shift their focus to the process of learning itself rather than on the number of points they need to get a certain grade or a well-defined, specific final product. With the right methods and tools, students have the opportunity to design problems to solve, explore curiosities and passions, and as a result, focus more on the process of learning.
Learn more about iBlocks and don’t miss my upcoming webinar “Ten Strategies to Support Teachers as Designers of Active Learning” on Thursday, November 10th at 3:30 p.m. ET via OTIS. Sign up here: OTIS Webinar.
About the Author
Rachelle Dené Poth is an ed-tech consultant, presenter, attorney, author, and teacher. Rachelle teaches Spanish and STEAM: What’s nExT in Emerging Technology at Riverview Junior-Senior High School in Oakmont, PA. Rachelle has a Juris Doctor degree from Duquesne University School of Law and a Master’s in Instructional Technology. She is a Consultant and Speaker, owner of ThriveinEDU LLC Consulting. She is an ISTE Certified Educator and currently serves as the past -president of the ISTE Teacher Education Network and on the Leadership team of the Mobile Learning Network. At ISTE19, she received the Making IT Happen Award and a Presidential Gold Award for volunteer service to education. She is also a Buncee Ambassador, Nearpod PioNear, and Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert.
Rachelle is the author of seven books and is a blogger for Getting Smart, Defined Learning, and NEO LMS. Follow Rachelle on Twitter @Rdene915 and Instagram @Rdene915. Rachelle has a podcast, ThriveinEDU https://anchor.fm/rdene915.
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The past couple of years have been challenging for everyone, but especially teachers. So it’s not surprising that a recent study found that 52% of K-12 teachers reported feeling burnt out. With so much happening and extra burdens on our time, it is more important than ever to focus on ways to make time for self-care.
In this article we will talk about the symptoms of teacher burnout, how it affects both the teacher and students, and ideas for avoiding (or recovering from) teacher burnout.
Symptoms of teacher burnout
Especially in a new school year, we want to be available for our students and their families. But, if we do not set boundaries and make ourselves seemingly available 24 hours a day every day of the week, it will lead to teacher burnout.
The challenges and trying to do all the things can quickly lead to exhaustion, frustration, and potentially, burnout for educators.
Signs that you might be suffering from or on the brink of teacher burnout are:
You have the feeling of dread when thinking about going to work, like Sunday scaries to the extreme, which is likely an obvious sign you are burnt out. There are other less obvious signs you are well on your way there, however.
These signs look different for each person, but common signs of teacher burnout include:
Exhaustion
Frustration
Withdrawal
Anxiety
Anger
Agitation
Trouble sleeping
Feeling a loss of purpose or passion
How does teacher burnout affect students and others around us?
Impact on personal lives
As educators, we have a great deal of responsibility when it comes to focusing on student wellness and also for checking in on our colleagues. The experiences we go through each day can weigh heavily on us emotionally, mentally, and physically, which can lead to burnout.
More than just impacting our professional lives, burnout will negatively impact our personal lives, as well. These impacts could be poor physical health, declining mental health, strained relationships, isolation, lack of overall happiness, and more.
Therefore, we need to have the right strategies in place to deal with the impact of these daily challenges and also model these coping strategies for our students.
Impact to students
As teachers, we spend almost 200 days a year with our students each school year. All this time with them makes a large impact on their learned behaviors from the actions they see from us.
Demonstrating how to successfully manage our time, create boundaries, and maintain good mental and physical health is equally as important to teach our students as the other subjects we specialize in. These skills are critical learnings students will take with them into adulthood.
Teacher burnout prevention
We know the importance of self-care and wellness and so we have to find something that works for us and also enables us to provide our best selves for our families, friends, colleagues, and students.
When faced with challenges, uncertainties, or too many things on our plate, it can be difficult to take the break we need and focus on our well-being. But, if we don’t start with ourselves, we will not be well-prepared to provide the support that our students need. To prepare, it is important that we start with SEL.
SEL is essential
When facing challenges, managing emotions and being comfortable asking for help when we need it are essential skills for everyone. Both in our professional and personal lives, our well-being can have an impact on everyone that we interact with.
When we start with our own mental health and wellness, then we can bring our best selves to everyone that we are connecting with. What better time than the start of a new school year!
As we are just beginning the new school year, we should be intentional about finding ways to focus on our well-being and also involve our students in meaningful learning opportunities to really understand what they are experiencing. We can focus on SEL together.
How can we check in on one another as we enter a new school year, which brings a lot of demands on teachers, students, and families?
Each school has new initiatives, procedures, school events, and many wonderful experiences, but they can also be overwhelming and taxing on us physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Ideas for how teachers can avoid burnout
As we start a new school year and face new challenges, and deal with changing schedules and demands on our time, we need to have a plan in place that works for us.
Creating a new daily routine or even using an app that will help us to take a break, to engage in mindfulness practices, or to focus on our own social-emotional learning and our health and wellness is so important.
Mindfulness apps There are several different apps that can be used to help with mindfulness and setting aside time each day to take a break and reflect. Calm App includes breathing exercises and has categories for music, sleep, and body to find meditations and relaxing exercises. JabuMind has a 10-week wellness series for educators that features iRest tools. There are meditations for starting your day, break time, releasing your day, bedtime, and the weekend.
Exercise. Be active. It is so important to break away from screen time and work and be active. My advice is to pick two points in your day where you will hold yourself accountable for something. Maybe it is going for an early morning or late evening walk. Maybe it is taking a walk around the school building to connect with students and colleagues. Either way, it is great to get up and moving.
Reading. A good friend of mine often talks about the books that she is reading and how she chooses books that are not focused on education or anything related to work. One idea is also to decide to listen to a book instead while taking a walk and doubling up on your self-care.
Be okay with saying no. Sometimes it can feel easier to say yes to an extra responsibility, project or even a small task. It can be uncomfortable to say no, but we have to balance our days and sometimes we need to limit ourselves to avoid burnout.
Set boundaries. It is important to set some boundaries and even goals for ourselves. If we keep ourselves connected a lot, perhaps it means leaving our devices in another room for a period of time. Another idea is to not respond to emails after a certain point in the day, or reserve a specific day each week that is time for our family, and friends and focus on ourselves.
Leverage tech to save time. Take a look at your daily tasks and see if there’s something that consistently takes up your time – like school dismissal. Then research and ask colleagues any technology they leverage to streamline those tasks.
Taking care of ourselves is important so that we can best care for others. We can also share these ideas with our students depending on their age and model the practice of taking breaks or making time for meditation or mindfulness.
Looking for ways to save daily time at dismissal while making school safer? Check out how Pikmykid helps teachers save time, frustration, and stress. See the benefits for teachers!
Meet the Authors
Rachelle Dené Poth is an ed-tech consultant, presenter, attorney, author, and teacher. Rachelle teaches Spanish and STEAM: What’s nExT in Emerging Technology at Riverview Junior-Senior High School in Oakmont, PA. Rachelle has a Juris Doctor degree from Duquesne University School of Law and a Master’s in Instructional Technology. She is a Consultant and Speaker, owner of ThriveinEDU LLC Consulting. She is an ISTE Certified Educator and currently serves as the past -president of the ISTE Teacher Education Network and on the Leadership team of the Mobile Learning Network. At ISTE19, she received the Making IT Happen Award and a Presidential Gold Award for volunteer service to education. She is also a Buncee Ambassador, Nearpod PioNear, and Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert.
Rachelle is the author of seven books and is a blogger for Getting Smart, Defined Learning, and NEO LMS. Follow Rachelle on Twitter @Rdene915 and Instagram @Rdene915. Rachelle has a podcast, ThriveinEDU https://anchor.fm/rdene915.
In collaboration with Pikmykid
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Read this blog long enough and you’ll realize how obsessed I am with baseball. Inevitably there will be posts devoted to baseball, anecdotes will center around baseball, and metaphors will be drawn from baseball.
Barguments often focus on which sport is the most difficult to play, the most demanding physically and mentally, the most failure heavy. As a lover of all sports, I can appreciate that an argument can be made for each of the four major sports: baseball, basketball, football, and hockey but, to me, there’s really only one answer.
Baseball.
Because of the physics (round ball, round bat), the variables (pitcher, weather), and the psychology (streaks, slumps), there is nothing more difficult than hitting a baseball consistently. A monster game at the plate can just as easily be followed by a soul-crushing slump of weeks, or months, the time in between at-bats seeming equal parts interminable and immediate as you perseverate on what went wrong.
As a 41-year-old weekend warrior, I only get a chance to play games on Sunday mornings. While my preparation for each game often dictates some midweek tee work or live batting practice, I’m still only playing once a week. Admittedly, I take baseball too seriously, but part of me doesn’t apologize for that because I don’t understand why folks would set out to do anything poorly, so I want to play as well as I can each week.
A few years ago I suffered through my worst season ever, and I’m including my high school playing days, during which I hit a paltry .179. During that summer, getting on base was such an anomaly that I could recall when I did reach base because it was only a handful of times. That ain’t good.
Deflated but undaunted, I continued to work that offseason because I was not going to return to my team the same player. At one point, I sent a video of myself taking swings off the tee to a friend of mine who is a hitting tactician. In seconds, he responded with a diagnosis and, ultimately, saved my swing.
“Dude, look at how far you’re wrapping the bat around your head. Change the bat angle to 1 o’clock before you load, and you’ll be quicker to the ball.”
Change. Your. Bat. Angle.
No amount of work on my own would have led me to that conclusion because, though I would have been working hard, I would have been working incorrectly. There was no way for me to self-diagnose my own flaw, so I had to ask for help.
Now, I “change my bat angle” all the time.
When I’m struggling with a certain colleague, I change my bat angle.
When I’m trying to convince my five-year-old that he can, in fact, put on his own socks, I change my bat angle.
When my early morning writing process stalls, I change my bat angle.
As you approach the upcoming school year, I challenge you to change your bat angle. Reflect intentionally on that which you have done the same way each year and change it.
Experiment with flexible seating and let the kids help you design the classroom’s layout
Revolutionize your “Back to School Night” by asking parents to leave their kids a video via Flipgrid
Reframe your instructional walkthroughs to focus on the kids, even a specific kid, in each room, and then write those kids a note of appreciation
Flip and hang old posters and allow kids to recreate them using their own words and images
Print, laminate, and hang Tweets or blog post excerpts about which you want your staff and students to think
Use a mobile desk so you’re in the hallways more and in your office less
Take time for yourself each day, even if it’s five minutes of nothing but sitting and breathing
Baseball is a game of failure, and in many ways, so is education. In each, the best players make adjustments all the time in order to best help their team. In each, those who refuse to make adjustments all the time don’t often have teams for long.
Change your bat angle.
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October has become the month where educators participate in events focused on digital citizenship. However, the focus on digital citizenship is not only relevant during October — it’s important throughout the entire year. With so much use of technology, especially during the past school year, we need to make sure that we are helping students to build digital citizenship skills in our classrooms.
With so many students interacting and having access to social media and digital tools, they need to develop the right skills to navigate these spaces and be prepared to deal with any challenges or barriers that may arise. According to Pew research, some students expressed feeling overwhelmed due to the pressure that can come from social media, while others experienced positive outcomes such as strengthening friendships and developing a greater understanding of diverse perspectives and backgrounds.
We need to create opportunities for students to become more digitally aware and literate, and to be responsible when using technology. There are many ways to do this, depending on our content area and grade level. We can model best practices for our students, bring in a specific digital citizenship curriculum to guide them through their learning, or use digital tools and resources available to have students explore and create.
Helping students learn to safely navigate what has become a highly digital world is something that we are all responsible for. Students need to be aware of the impact of their posts online, how to create and manage social accounts and protect their information, and how to properly access and use resources they obtain through technology.
5 resources to explore
In my experience, I started by joining one of the October events and limited our focus on digital citizenship to that one day. However, for the past few years, I’ve been starting each new school year with a focus on digital citizenship and continue working on it throughout the year. I believe that it’s important to start with a discussion about interactions and what some of the challenges might be when it comes to using technology and our interactions.
In my eighth-grade STEAM class, we discuss each of the nine elements following the outline and the resources provided in the book Digital Citizenship 9 Elements by Mike Ribble. We have used the following resources in our class and, as an added activity, students choose one of the nine elements and create sketch notes that we display in the hall for the school community to learn about digital citizenship.
Here are five resources for teaching about digital citizenship:
21 Things 4 Teachers provides teachers with 21 different topics aimed at helping students to develop the technology skills they need for the digital world. There are learning activities and assignments for students to complete at their own pace. It also offers professional development through ten-hour self-paced learning modules which connect curriculum with technology and best instructional strategies. Students can learn about online safety and specific technology topics through activities, videos, and quests.
Common Sense Education provides digital citizenship lesson plans to help educators address relevant topics and help students learn how to create their digital lives. There are many lessons available for different grade levels and topics such as media balance and wellbeing, digital footprint and identity, and cyberbullying. Each lesson includes a plan, estimated time, materials needed, and key vocabulary terms, making it easy for educators to get started.
Be Internet Awesome offers a free curriculum that provides everything teachers need for teaching online safety and digital citizenship in the classroom. It has additional resources such as activities, charts, guides, and Google slides. Students can go to “Interland” to play different games to learn more about internet safety and keeping information secure.
Book Creator now has three books on digital citizenship, created in collaboration with Common Sense Education. Students can also create their own books to share what they are learning, collaborate with classmates and build their own digital citizenship skills during the process. Books can include audio, images, text, and video. Have your class create their own Digital Citizenship book to inform others!
Brain Pop has a variety of lessons and topics for educators and students. In the digital citizenship module, there are 16 topics, and one of the free lessons is Digital Etiquette. Students can learn about each topic by playing games, making graphic organizers, learning about primary sources, making a movie, and there are more interactive and personalized options available. Brain Pop has free and premium accounts.
Nearpod has many lessons available for educators to get started quickly, with some lessons focused on digital citizenship. There are short videos that can be used to promote discussion and full lessons that offer a mix of content and activities that boost student engagement and involvement in discussions with their classmates. Nearpod offers more than 380 interactive lessons focused on digital citizenship and literacy.
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Reflective Teaching and Powerful Professional Learning with LessonLoop
Educators are always looking for new ideas to boost student engagement in the classroom. To do so, they need to understand student interests and needs and also be intentional about reflecting on their teaching practice. While teachers want to understand the impact of their instructional methods and tools on students’ learning, they often don’t have time to solicit feedback from individual students, and students are afraid to provide honest feedback when they feel saying the wrong thing could impact their grade. Yet students need to be part of the conversation, because not only is student voice a powerful tool that can be used to engage students in their learning, but student feedback surveys are better predictors of academic growth than principal observation and teacher self-ratings (Hanover Research 2013).
As Alex Isaacs, an 8th-grade math teacher notes, “LessonLoop allows me to quickly conduct a survey with great questions built-in where I can quickly push this out to my students to better inform my practice.”
LessonLoop instantly shows you how engaged your students are with a class lesson so you can gain immediate insights and adjust your instruction in real-time to help them learn better. As shown below, LessonLoop works through the four simple steps of:
4. Discuss results with students so learners feel seen and heard.
How LessonLoop Works
How do the surveys guide teachers about their practice?
LessonLoop measures student engagement in nine actionable categories (see below) that provide you with insight on how to calibrate your instruction to support active learning at each student’s just-right instructional level. With these categories, teachers have better ways to focus on the specific needs and interests of their students. Especially for social-emotional learning (SEL) and determining student progress in class, the categories and questions provide tremendous insight for teachers with information not easily accessible in any other way.
With the information the surveys provide, teachers have many ways to evaluate, analyze and then act upon authentic student feedback to improve their practice. Working with LessonLoop’s instructional coaches/Tip Masters, they can explore new methods and tools to help address some of the areas indicated in the survey.
Sample Lesson Engagement Report
What can we learn about student engagement from using LessonLoop?
Through lesson embedded feedback, teachers better understand the impact of their instructional strategies and how students experience the learning environment. By reviewing the responses, especially the free responses, teachers receive feedback that promotes reflective practice. Using the survey results, Tip Masters work with each teacher to find strategies and tools that will increase active student learning.
Sample LessonLoop Student Free Responses
How does LessonLoop facilitate getting to know students?
LessonLoop provides opportunities for every student to share their perspective on their immediate environment and how they are experiencing a lesson. Incorporating student voice allows students to experience a sense of respect and empowerment from their teacher. With LessonLoop, students can provide valuable feedback to their teacher and all feedback is provided through an anonymous survey, which promotes more honest feedback. Students feel comfortable responding to the survey, and because their opinions are heard, they feel more connected to and comfortable in their classroom community. When teachers circle back and discuss how to improve a lesson with students, students feel their voice is impactful and are empowered to take ownership of their learning. Students that feel seen and heard have greater motivation for and engagement in learning because they feel like an impactful member of the classroom community.
How does the gamification aspect of LessonLoop lead to better and more authentic, honest feedback from students?
LessonLoop incorporates gamification elements through our fun, animated surveys (see pictures below). According to Dr. Shawn Clybor, “These gamification elements keep students more alert, more active in engagement, and therefore more likely to read the questions and think about their answers.” LessonLoop is designed to be a robust platform that informs instruction and involves students in their learning experiences. It is also meant to “encourage joyfulness, to be fun, to be funny,” says Clybor. Using it becomes its own experience, building bonds between teachers and students.
LessonLoop Gamified Surveys
In addition to the gamified surveys, LessonLoop provides educators the ability to ask custom questions and generate two new games (humorous poll and secret word) with one click. These games focus on student engagement at the beginning of class, serve as a pick-me-up if attention is flagging mid-class, or are a fun way to end a student engagement survey.
What professional learning comes with LessonLoop?
LessonLoop provides personalized data-driven professional learning for teachers. While all teachers have access to a knowledge base of free tips, with a paid tips subscription, every teacher is assigned an experienced Tip Master to help with reviewing their surveys and finding strategies and tools to try. The real-time lesson-embedded feedback helps educators better connect their instruction to students and be more reflective in their practice. Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) also benefit as all teachers receive instructional recommendations from subject-area specialists and coaches! PLCs can be organized around student-centered data for engagement and professional learning. Within the PLCs, teachers can share ideas and provide support to one another which then enhances the learning experience for all students. In addition, educators accumulate continuing education units (CEUs) based on minutes of use of the platform aligned with Learning Forward and/or Charlotte Danielson standards.
What to expect with LessonLoop
So many benefits!
Student Engagement Surveys:
Amplify student voice through anonymous surveys
Strong predictor of academic outcomes
Provide missing actionable data on why students aren’t learning
Provide daily feedback on the delivery of the curriculum with a clear focus on social-emotional learning (SEL), critical thinking and collaboration, and culturally responsive instruction.
We are offering free trials of LessonLoop to educators who provide feedback on our new gamified student surveys. Click here for a free trial! And if you missed our webinar, here is the link!
**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here. Looking for a new book to read? Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks
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As a language and STEAM educator, I am always looking for new ideas for my classroom. Especially when it comes to exploring emerging technologies, I enjoy diving into new resources and seeing how students respond.
A big area of focus in my eighth-grade STEAM course is artificial intelligence. For any educator thinking about getting started with artificial intelligence in the classroom, but worried about knowing enough or which resources to try, I definitely recommend checking out what is available through AutoAuto AI and their self-driving cars. If you are hesitant to bring STEM to your classroom, AutoAuto AI makes it easy to get started with their teacher on-board training and easy-to-navigate learning platform. Also, their free professional development courses are available where teachers can take a deeper dive and earn an AutoAuto Certificate of Completion.
Why learn about AI?
Many people wonder about the benefits of learning about AI and why bring it into our classrooms? The quick response: We are interacting with AI every day and our students need to understand what it is, how it works, the impact that it has on our lives, and what it might mean for the future of work and education. With resources like AutoAuto, we are able to provide the right learning opportunities that will spark student curiosity and help them to build skills in these emerging technologies. It also helps educators to feel more comfortable starting with AI and being able to support students along the way. We take them from consumers to creators and innovators. With the use of AutoAuto, students develop programming skills and educators can also meet the ISTE Student Standards.
Getting started
What I think is quite important, is engaging our students in conversations about what AI is and where we see it in the world. What are the benefits and concerns when it comes to AI? For anyone looking for an all-in-one space to get started right away with AI and to have access to videos, rich content, guides and more, AutoAuto AI is a great choice! The lessons include an Intro to Programming and AI, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, and more. Students can build skills in many areas and master Python programming.
What makes AutoAuto AI so beneficial, is that teachers are able to enroll students in their classroom and let them get started at their own pace. Being able to see each student’s progress and provide personalized feedback to them through the comments available or typing your own, makes a big difference for student learning. The teacher dashboard is great for seeing how students are working through each of the units. Being in class with students to hear their responses to receiving points and working through challenges was great to experience.
Students working through each unit.
The auto-grading feature is definitely a timesaver and for manually graded lessons the availability of an answer key to review student submissions makes it easy to provide authentic and timely feedback! With some courses moving towards a 100% alignment to CSTA, and other common CS standards, AutoAuto is a great choice for 3rd-12th grades.
AutoAuto’s virtual car and worlds are quick to captivate students’ interest with its fun city where there are places to visit such as a pizza shop and a car wash. In the virtual city, students can go on different challenges such as the spy mission and the color hunting challenge. Using the physical and virtual AutoAuto cars, students are able to see the real ways that code can save lives, like in the pedestrian detection and avoidance project. Students really enjoy these real-world experiences!
All students can code!
Because the platform has video lessons, slides, and text to assist, students are guided throughout each unit. With a video overview, exercise hints, and instant feedback on their submissions, students can work independently and use these resources as a model. Even though some students were hesitant at first, saying that they “wouldn’t be able to figure out the code,” they quickly realized that they had the support they needed within the platform and from each other. When students were working on the more advanced projects, as I moved around the classroom, students were asking each other “How did you figure out the code?” or “Can you help me with this?” which was a change from them relying on me for answers. There was definitely excitement when students completed a task and were awarded points. Throughout the class I could hear some cheers for “Nice, 25 points!” and “ Yes, I got it right this time!”
Students really enjoyed having the opportunity to work through each of the courses and learn about the coding behind the virtual cars. For my students, they were able to choose where to begin based on their interests and this made them quite happy. As soon as I showed students the dashboard and the units, a few said “I’m starting with computer vision because that looks awesome!”
The power of choice is great for students and providing ways for them to develop problem-solving and critical thinking ways while sparking curiosity makes a difference for engagement levels. Even though at times, students get stuck with writing code, they are starting to help each other and are learning together!
Preparing for the future
To best prepare students, we need to help them develop a variety of skills that enable them to be flexible with changes that will happen in the world of work. With emerging technologies like AI, students need opportunities to work through some challenges and develop SEL skills such as self-awareness, self-management, and relationship-building. Students supported one another as they worked through the different modules, which can be challenging at times. It is great to see students developing their confidence when it comes to coding and also taking more of a lead in class.
When we provide students with experiences that will more meaningfully engage them with the content, by moving them from consumers to creators, it will increase student engagement and promote higher student achievement. In my class, students began asking each other for help with some of their tasks. As a teacher, it is great to see students take the lead more and also not be afraid to ask for help when needed. Seeing them collaborate and problem-solve together are just a few of the added benefits! With only 51% of U.S. high schools teaching computer science, and the demand for STEM jobs expected to increase 11% from 2020 to 2030, AutoAuto’s curricula can help you prepare your students for tomorrow.
We must make sure that we best prepare our students by providing access to resources like AutoAuto that provide them with opportunities to work at their own pace and explore based on their interests and needs. By providing students with opportunities to engage in more student-driven, hands-on learning, it adds more meaning and authenticity to the work that they’re doing.
**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here. Looking for a new book to read? Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks
************ Also check out my THRIVEinEDU PodcastHere!
Guest post in collaboration with Focusable @getfocusable
Engagement is a concept that really has a hold on us, and it’s not just educators. Social media and game designers obsess about maximizing it. Enterprise software companies espouse the value of it towards team performance. Heck, our banking app tracks our session duration and tries to increase it.
It’s likely accurate to say that the majority of educators have chosen engagement as the goal of their work. Overall, this is a good thing. It has helped move teaching methods beyond compliance and remain relevant. Engaged students are an unequivocally good thing.
But recently we started to ask ourselves some questions about engagement. What does it really mean to be engaged? Both from the teacher’s perspective, and from the students’. Further, does it matter how engagement gets created? Or is all engagement the same? And if every experience you have across society is also aiming to maximize engagement, is it the right thing for educators to be doing? Or should educators be taking a left-hand turn…
We dug into the education literature on the topic. There are countless informative and thoughtful sources. What was most interesting to us was what our research didn’t reveal – a clear definition. Frankly, the more we dug, the more confused we got. There is a huge range of definitions. And not all of them agree. Here’s just a sampling. Engagement is paying attention. It is purposeful learning. It’s curiosity. It’s interaction (or action). It’s immersion in a task. It’s flow. It’s exhibiting a passion for learning. It’s excitement. It’s just compliance but with another name. There are scaffolds trying to integrate and make sense of all the disparate definitions.
How does a teacher even know what engagement is and how to create it with this lack of definitional clarity?
As we stated in our first post, our goal is to figure out how to set the conditions for an optimal learning experience, or flow, in education. We know this has the greatest potential for both academic performance and enjoyment of the experience for students. Our research into engagement was fueled by trying to understand how we can leverage the concept better towards this goal. But if we’ve learned anything about flow so far, the details matter in how you approach it. Deplete dopamine too much or avoid the struggle of balancing brain chemistry, and you simply never get there.
The more we thought about it, the lack of clarity around engagement started to feel more like a hurdle than a concept for educators to leverage.
One early realization that we had was that engagement is an exhibited trait or behavior. This stands in contrast with flow, which speaks to inner experience. This introduces the potential for at least some disconnect.
For example, do you look engaged when you are in flow? This must be true sometimes, but is it always true? And do the actions that set the conditions for flow look like engagement, too? Or do they look different? How do you know the difference between the two? And worse, what if what looks like engagement actually represents an internal state that interferes with flow (ie, overstimulation)?
Our sense is that to strive for optimal, we need to work with terms that have more precise definitions, clearer look-fors, and less potential dualities.
In our last post, we attempted to build a scaffold to help us seek this clarity. We already have some tweaks and improvements in mind based on the feedback we got that we’ll publish soon.
In the meantime, we’ll turn our attention to the term focus.
If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it.MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI, AUTHOR OF FLOW, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE
Focus is a term that we all know, or at least think we know. And it’s surely something that almost anyone would agree is essential to learning if you asked. But as we found in our last Twitter chat, it is not a hot topic with many educators (likely due to the emphasis of engagement).
Focus is often equated with the words attention and concentration. In scientific circles, attention is the most clearly defined of this group. The neuroscientific definition of attention is a cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one thing while ignoring other things. Attention comes from a rather complicated interaction between several brain networks (the default mode and task-directed networks). Interestingly, ADHD and other attentional conditions are differences in how these two brain networks interact.
The definition of focus is more varied and less scientific. It is often described as the center of attention. But for educators, this definition isn’t as enabling as it could be. A more useful definition is to think of it as the control of attention.
Why is control of attention a useful definition to educators? Most scientific findings support the idea that attention isn’t fixed. It varies. It varies between individuals and contexts. And importantly, it can change. You can improve it. Even those with ADHD can show progress with time, behavioral changes and yes, medication. It is both accurate and useful to think of it as a skill. Control of attention is a definition that captures this important fact.
This means that not only is focus practically helpful towards things like managing classrooms, it is also a skill that you are developing through the learning experiences you create.
So what is the relationship between focus and flow? Flow can be defined succinctly as ordered consciousness. This is in contrast to normal consciousness which is usually disordered (distracted, out of our control, etc). So it follows somewhat logically that control of attention is the very foundation. Some definitions for flow even use the words intense focus. But the two shouldn’t be directly conflated. Focus itself is not flow. Focus requires effort to get started. There is no loss of self, as there is with flow. Finding focus can provoke all sorts of reactions, often negative. Frankly, it’s a struggle. Flow is none of those things. Flow is what happens when your neurochemistry finds balance while struggling to focus and starts to feed further action more naturally.
It is worth stating that you will never experience flow if you cannot control your attention.
It is also worth noting that focus is a useful skill beyond the purposes of finding flow. Most of the predictions about the future of jobs, and the skills educators should be aiming for in response, are misguided at this point. We can say this with confidence, because frankly, we have a horrible track record as a society of seeing the capabilities of technology in advance.
But there is one aspect we are 100% confident in, and it is this: there will be more, and more sophisticated, experiences to control your attention with each passing year. It’s already a huge problem, as we all know. And it’s only going to get worse. Controlling your attention is just about the only ‘skill of the future’ we’d bet our life savings on.
Control means you can direct, or redirect your attention at will. You can stop doing one thing, and start doing another. You are aware of where your attention is and where it isn’t. It is often a struggle, but in this case, visible struggle might be a positive sign. A sign that the skill of focus is being worked on.
A lack of control, then, is distractibility. It is the inability to switch from one task to another. It is a lack of awareness of what you are doing. It could be a lack of struggle, or even just over-excitability.
If you were to try to observe whether a student is focused, or not, these would be some of the things you would look for.
While we recognize, again, that some definitions of engagement might match up – it’s really the ones that don’t that have us most concerned. They incent teachers to skip over the development of the skill of focus in the interest of more obvious interaction. And to us, this is a short-term gain for the long-term loss of the potential for flow, as well as interfering with the development of an essential skill.
Perhaps moving away from engagement is the left-hand turn educators should consider.
**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here. Looking for a new book to read? Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks
************ Also check out my THRIVEinEDU PodcastHere!
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Learning as I go: Reflections & lessons learned 