5 Paragraph Essays & Newspaper Articles vs. Blog Posts & Copywriting

If I were to ask you to write a mission statement as a teacher, what would you write? If it could only be one sentence, what are the things that would be most important for you to share in your beliefs about our students? For most of us, I think somewhere in there we’d say something about preparing our students for the future. That means we have to think about what the future may hold. I know I’ve shared the quote below, but remember what Thomas Friedman says about today’s workers:

While we may not know exactly what the future may hold, we know that there are some things that our students probably will not be doing much of in the future. Stop and think for a minute – when was the last time you wrote a five paragraph essay? ELA teacher please don’t hate me for saying this, but really, when was the last time you needed that skill? I say all of this knowing that when I last taught ELA, we always had at least one research paper that was submitted in the five paragraph format. Now, I agree that there are aspects of a five paragraph essay that are essential – being concise in our argument, having a clear structure for our writing, etc., but are there other formats of writing that could allow us to teach these same skills and at the same time be innovative?

What about another one of those writing activities that appears in many classrooms (including mine in the past) – the newspaper article. Now, I will say that I have a subscription to the Indy Star, and while I can’t say that I ever read it cover to cover, and that there are some days that I don’t get to it at all, I do love having the option to sit down and read the paper. However, the statistics on print media are noticeable. I did a quick google search and found the charts below. There’s less money coming into print media in the form of ad revenue, and the number of workers employed in newspaper publishing has been in pretty steady decline.

Now, I may be ruffling a few feathers here – and by no means am I saying that I think our students should never write a five paragraph essay or a newspaper article, but given the probable lack of a need for those skills in their future, what might be more valuable ways for our students to spend their time? Two things that come to mind – blog posts and copy writing.

More and more, newspapers are trying to reach readers in formats other than print media. I see IndyStar writers pop up in my Twitter feed sharing copy trying to get people to click the links and go the their site. I see news articles online that are formatted more like a blog than a newspaper. Two ways to help our students be able to reach the greater world would involve writing blog posts (like what you’re looking at right now), and learning a little about copywriting (the art and science of writing words used on web pages, ads, promotional materials, etc., that sells your product of service and convinces prospective customers to take action). Now, I know that our students aren’t trying to sell things, but the skills of writing good copy will help our students be better overall writers.

Throughout the year you have heard us talk about the HSE²¹ best practice model. You’ve also seen examples of the “Less of this, more of this” charts. Again, I’m not saying we should throw out the five-paragraph essay or the newspaper article. But we also need to think with an eye towards the future. What types of writing will be the most valuable for our students when they leave school and move on to a career?

Think about it, a student in your class could write a blog post on something they have been learning about. Other students (or teachers, parents, family members, or maybe even experts in a given field of study) would be able to read and respond in the comments to their thinking. Students would be able to share their blog site with their friends and family members. Parents wouldn’t have to ask the dreaded “What did you do at school today?” because they could have looked at the most recent blog post and say “I saw in the most recent post to the blog that you are learning about …, tell me more about that.”

It’s also been proven through study after study that ELA scores are impacted most by reading and writing across the curriculum (teaching reading and writing skills should not only be the job of the ELA teacher). What a valuable expression of learning it would be for our students to write a blog post about their experiences in math, art, science, or gym (or any other subject!!!). And another great thing about blog posts – they don’t have to be just words. WordPress (and most other blog sites out there) will allow pictures, video, and audio, and if I really wanted to, I could create an entire post from my WordPress app on my cell phone or my iPad.

What are your thoughts on student created blogs? Can you see a way that you could enrich the learning of the students in your class through writing about it? What about copywriting? Curious how it could fit into the writing activities you are already doing? Wanna talk more about this? Share your thought below. We can find a structure to make it work in your classroom!

The Crossroads of Creation and Consumption

What’s the last thing that you “consumed”? Maybe it’s a new series on Netflix, or a great book, or maybe you listened to a playlist of songs you love. All of those could be examples of consumption. Our students are experts at consumption! Playing a game while listening to music, and with something on the TV. I know that often in our classrooms we are seeking to help our students to create something for the world. In your ELA class you might expect them to create a presentation to go with their persuasive research paper. In science it could be creating an experiment that shows some of the scientific properties that you have been studying. In math you might ask them to create a model of some of the geometric shapes you have been learning about. This list could go on.

Oftentimes we think of consumption as fairly low level thinking, while creating is higher level thinking. But I want to challenge that a bit today with certain types of consumption. Recently my family decided that we wanted to have a vegetable garden in our back yard, but didn’t know exactly what that might entail. I consumed information from websites and blog posts to think about where we should put it, and how we would create it. After looking at a variety of options, we decided that we were going to do a raised bed in the back yard.

Next we had to come up with a design. Again, I consumed resources. I jumped on Pinterest and looked at pictures of examples of raised bed gardens. Did we want to use stone or lumber? Once we decided on wood, then it was a question of what kind. My searches on Pinterest took me to various websites that talked about the advantage of cedar compared to redwood compared to treated lumber. The options (and the opinions) seemed endless. Eventually we decided to go with treated lumber. Check out the pictures below documenting some of our process!

We placed it in the backyard where there would be plenty of sunshine.

Creating a garden plan (we went a little overboard here! )

We’ve got plants and seeds! Let’s plant a garden!

It’s all growing! 2 weeks after planting day and we can already see changes.

I guess what I’m getting at is that all of us have to consume from time to time, and so do our students. Part of 21^st Century Learning requires consumption, but I think we would all agree that there is a difference in consumption of a series on Netflix or a book that we are reading for enjoyment as compared to the type of consumption that we do when we want to learn about a new teaching strategy or a project that we want to do at home. That’s where we come in – through guiding our students in how to consume information, we can help make sure that consumption is for the purpose of learning and creation.

What strategies have been successful to guide your students to meaningful consumption? What things have you consumed that have led to additional learning? As lifelong learners, it’s important to verbalize what we are still learning about! That’s part of what I am documenting in these weekly posts, my own learning! Share with us in the comments below things that you have taken in that have led you to create something – for your students, your classroom, your family, or just for you. Or share with us some of the things you students have created!

If you find the idea of creation and consumption interesting and would like to dig a little bit deeper, check out the Ted Talk by Larry Lessig titled Laws that choke creativity. It might lead you to think about consumption a little bit differently!

Selling your content to your students

“Nobody else can make anybody else learn anything. You don’t make the flowers grow. You don’t sit there and stick the petals on and put the leaves on and paint it. You don’t do that. The flower grows itself. Your job, if you are any good at it, is to provide the optimum conditions for it to do that, to allow it to grow.”

I love the quote above from Sir Ken Robinson. It goes with the old saying of “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force him to drink.” Recently I was sitting in a meeting with a wise member of our district curriculum team who pointed out that it’s true you can’t make the horse drink, but you can make sure they are thirsty. Sometime getting our students to learn is a bit like selling them something, and that something is the content you are trying to get your students to learn.

A few weeks ago I shared a TED Talk from Daniel Pink, and now I’m going to use some of the ideas from Daniel Pink’s book To Sell Is Human. Think about how you might take his messages on his career in sales and translate it into selling content to your students.

Let them tell you why they agree with you. If your students are able to find a connection between your message and their own life, they will take whatever you have to offer. Set up your lesson so that students have no choice but to agree with you.
Decide whether to pitch with facts or questions. How do you persuade someone to agree with your opinions? Most of us have figured out that basic persuasion typically requires a combination of facts and opinions.
Remember that your digital audience is wider than ever. Think about the last great lesson you did – if your students were excited about it, you probably had a teammate or colleague asking about it. Word of mouth spreads it from your students to other students, to colleagues, parents, and administrators. And in a digital age those activities can easily go viral. If you have an audience excited to see what’s happening next, they’ll be thirsty for whatever you have to offer.
Be a servant leader. Relationships! You know it works. Did you have a good experience the last time you bought a car? Some of that experience is because the salesman was able to build report with you, and then followed up on your needs. Students will feel the same way – if they feel there is a relationship with you, they will listen to more of what you have to offer.
Help people find their needs. One of your jobs as a teacher in this new age is to identify problems for your students to solve that cannot be solved by going to Google. If your students trust you to help them find the problems that need to be solved, they’ll listen to you when you help them learn how to evaluate solutions.

I know that most of us didn’t go into education to be able to “sell” our students information. We want our students to have a desire to learn. But just as we can’t force the horse to take a drink, we have no way to force our students to learn. In addition to the sales techniques listed below, the HSE²¹ best practice model is a good guide for creating the conditions in our classrooms and the learning environments that will cause our students to be thirsty for the knowledge we have to offer. Work to include the core pieces of the best practice model in your classroom everyday – don’t reinvent your lessons, just find ways to remodel them to bring the aspects that will sell our students on our content.

How have you sold knowledge to your students? What strategies have you used that made your students excited to learn whatever you had to share with them? Share some of your successes in the comments below!

PLNs – Professional Learning Networks or Personal Learning Networks – you choose!

Many of you may know that one of my personal passions is cooking. I learned to cook basic things when I was in elementary school. When I was in 4-H I had multiple county fair champions, and sent a few things to the State Fair. In our house now I do most of the cooking because it’s something I enjoy doing. Over the years I have developed my “favorite” meals that I have found out there and adjusted to suit my tastes, or the tastes of my family. Last fall however, I noticed that I had a series of 10-12 things that we were just cycling through. It was hard to choose anything to cook because I was getting bored with the options I had. I needed something new. Then, I happened to be listening to an interview of J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, the author of The Food Lab, and I knew I had to get his cookbook. The guy was a self-described science nerd who became a chef and uses the scientific method to perfect his recipes – sign me up!

The book is almost 1000 pages, includes awesome step by step pictures and instructions for hundreds of recipes, along with scientific descriptions of what happens during the cooking process, explanations of experiments to find the best option in preparing certain dishes, and suggestions for home cooks to be able to carry out techniques that normally are reserved for professional kitchens. In the several months that I have had the book, we have upgraded our meals in the Behrman household. The only complaint? I think I need to run a few extra miles every week with the food we’ve been eating (it’s been hard not to have a second serving with most of these meals!).

Now, some of you may be wondering what this has with a PLN, but I promise, I’m going to try to make it connect. When you think about what you need to grow as an educator, what comes to mind? Jot down the top 3 things that you think of. Really… Take a moment to jot down those top 3. This post will still be here when you get it done.

Now, if I were to poll you, there would be a massive variety of choices that would make it impossible for any administrator to come up with a school PD plan that would meet the needs of all of you. Instead, here’s what I suggest– think about your passions, your areas of continued growth, and get learning! You could talk to your colleagues about things you’re interested in. There are tons of experts within your building and throughout your district. If you’re looking for someone to help you in a specific area, ask around. Maybe your administrator can point you in the right direction. By sharing our knowledge and sharing our curiosities, we can become an environment that encourages lifelong learning.

You know when you find something exciting! You know when you have an idea that you just have to try out! Just like I became excited about new cooking with The Food Lab cookbook, you can find your own ways to grow as an educator, and hopefully the rest of this post will help with that!

Our connections on social media allow us to connect with educators like never before! Matt Miller - https://www.flickr.com/photos/126588706@N08/14562418440/in/album-72157645530010989/ — Our connections on social media allow us to connect with educators like never before!
Matt Miller – https://www.flickr.com/photos/126588706@N08/14562418440/in/album-72157645530010989/

A couple weeks ago I shared links to some education hashtags for Twitter (click here to go back to that post). See if there are any that tie to your 3 things you jotted down earlier – want to learn more about standards based learning? #SblChat might be perfect for you! Interested in educational technology? Check out #edtech! For things specific to your grade level, you might want to check out #5thchat (5^th grade chat) or #6thchat (6^th grade chat). If Twitter isn’t your thing, you might try a search on Pinterest (yes, even I have an account!). You can also search Facebook, and often you can find great videos on YouTube that may help you learn.

If you aren’t quite sure what you want to learn about, then you might have to take some other steps to find a path – you could ask your students what you should learn next. Find out what interests them, what learning methods work for them, or what they’d be excited to do. You could also check the blogosphere. You’ve heard me reference blogs in the past – blogs like Edutopia, A.J. Juliani, Cult of Pedagogy, and The Cornerstone for Teachers are a few that I like. Most of the blogs I have found have been through links from blogs I already followed. If you find a blog you like, subscribe, or use Feedly as a single place to keep track of them all!

I know that some of you may be thinking that it’s the end of the year and you don’t want to mix anything up. Think about it though – wouldn’t it be better to try something totally new with a group of students you already know, as opposed to trying it with a new group of students you don’t know yet? Isn’t it easier to make adjustments to your teaching when one of the variables – students – is a known quantity? Don’t put the pressure of learning something new on your future self! There is no better time to try something new than right now!

Finally, one suggestion that might make some of us a little uncomfortable – seek out people with beliefs that might be different than you. Being brave enough to learn from those who challenge you can be one key to your continued growth. Find someone who challenges you and talk with them with the purpose of understanding their thinking, not getting it to line up with yours – you might learn from them, and they might learn from you.

What things have you learned through your professional learning network? Share with us in the comments below! We’d love to hear about it!

All means all (Part 2)

Last week I shared the following question for us to think about: Should we be worried about whether the kids are ready for the school, or should we be worried about whether the school is ready for the kids? Today I am going to share my experiences visiting a few elementary classrooms here in HSE a few weeks ago. I share these not as a way of saying that our classrooms need to mirror these classrooms, but rather to get us thinking about the learning environments that our students will be coming to us from, and in turn thinking about how the changes at elementary schools might change our practices.

A couple weeks ago I had the privilege to visit FCE and see 2 of the kindergarten classrooms that have transitioned to a Reggio Emilia approach (if you don’t know what that is, click here to learn a little more). A few of the things that stood out to me while I was there: there were no typical student desks or tables, instead there was a large picnic table (that almost the whole class could sit at) as well as a couple of coffee tables, end tables and in one of the rooms, an old dining room table; seating was flexible, there were chairs, stools, benches, tree stumps, and the floor; everything on the wall was student created, the numbers chart, the alphabet, a color chart with labels, and of course student work, I didn’t see a single thing that you would buy at “a teacher store”; all around the room there were stations with questions to get kids thinking, one allowed students to build their own birds nest, another had a mixture of various items in a pan and they could write about their thoughts; this list could go on! We were there right at the beginning of the school day, and when the students came in they put their things away and then began to explore the room. In the time that we were there, we saw high levels of engagement, and almost only heard the student voice in the classroom. I can hear some of you right now – but that was a kindergarten classroom! I agree, but are there aspects of that classroom that could translate to what we know about the developmental stages of our 5^th and 6^th graders?

Kindergartners explaining their mathematical thinking.

Unique seating, exploring the room, and you may notice an open door to the garden outside.

Student created patterns, and pictures of things students have noticed that include a pattern.

Unique seating choices existed all over the room, you can see a couple of the options here.

Post-it notes from an activity on things that can be built – even the chart paper is written by students.

The next stop was BSE to visit a 4^th grade classroom. When we walked in, students were in the process of coming up with the essential questions for their unit on the Civil War – let me reiterate, Students were coming up with the essential questions. They had been provided copies of various primary source documents and artwork from the Civil War. In addition to the primary source documents, the teacher had also created a Symbaloo (if you’ve never used Symbaloo, click here to see what that is) students could use to navigate to preselected safe websites to research additional Civil War information. As I walked around, students were completely engaged in their work. As they came up with a question they were interested in, they would share with a neighbor. Eventually some of these questions would be written on a post-it and added to the essential questions chart paper at the front of the room. The role of the teacher in this classroom was one of a guide who hopped from group to group checking in to see what they were coming up with and thinking about, and at times asking questions to get them to think deeper.

Both of these classrooms were great examples of HSE²¹ Best Practices in action.The learning was student centered, highly rigorous, collaborative, and inclusive. So often as teachers at the intermediate level we build our expectations for our students based on where the students need to get to. Intermediate schools in HSE were not originally created to be mini junior highs, and in many districts 5^th and 6^th graders are still in the elementary school. Again, I’m not saying that we’re doing something wrong, or we need to imitate the examples above, but based on what we know about the developmental stages of our students, what aspects of these classrooms might be beneficial to our students?

What ideas do you take away from the descriptions of these classrooms? Are there things you could see translating to your own classroom? What might it be? How might the physical appearance of your classroom change as you think about the students that will be joining us? How might teaching and learning look different in your classroom based on these descriptions? Are any of you interested in thinking about what a Reggio approach might look like in an intermediate setting? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

All means all

How many times when talking with others in our school do you hear the phrase “We have to get them ready for ____”? You can fill in the blank with all kinds of different phrases – things like 6^th grade, junior high, ISTEP, or any one of the other things we are trying to get our students prepared for. It is a valid thing to think about because we do have to prepare our students for the future. However…

This is how some of the students in HSE are starting their experiences in our kindergarten classrooms.

How often do you hear the words “We have to be ready for the students that are coming to us.”? In most schools, the environment of the school is set up for one specific developmental stage. I know through conversations with many of you that we have at least a cursory understanding of the fact that our 10, 11, and 12 year old students fall all over the developmental spectrum. It’s one of the things I love about working with 5^th and 6^th grade students, but it can also be one of the greatest challenges. While not being intentional, sometimes schools set up a system that expect all students to fit within a certain box, and when they don’t fit, it creates struggles for students, teachers, and parents. So the question begs to be asked, is our system set up to meet our students wherever they are in terms of developmental needs?

Think about this for a moment: Should we be worried about whether the kids are ready for the school, or should we be worried about whether the school is ready for the kids?

Next week’s post will share with you my recent experiences visiting a few elementary classrooms. I am sharing these not to say that we need to try to mirror their methods or strategies, but to help us understand the types of classrooms our students will be coming to us from. One of the things that I feel sometimes happens in education is that teachers of older grades sometimes “look down upon” the teachers of younger grades. I think there can be great value in learning from the ways that teachers in grades below us meet the developmental needs of their students.

As we move forward, let’s work towards building our expectations for our students based on where they are when they get to us. We can still strive to move them to where they need to be, but we need to be open to the fact that some of our students do not fit in the box that we have created for them. Some of those outliers may need us to provide extra support, while others may just need us to get out of the way and let them learn.

Change the learners or the learning conditions #83learns #bcedchat #bcpvpa pic.twitter.com/IIwKW8Klos

— Ian Landy (he/him) (@technolandy) March 6, 2016

What strategies and methods do you use to meet the needs of the student who walks into your classroom on a daily basis? Are there methods that seem to help your students who are less mature than the rest of your class? Or, on the other end of the spectrum, what do you do with the students that are much more mature than the others in your classroom? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Don’t deny the technology – permanently…

As most of you know, HSE²¹ has been a multi-year project in which administrators, teachers, parents, and students have been looking at how best to create a 21^st century learning experience for our students. Through the program the Best Practice Model was developed, and in time the decision was made to transition to a 1:1 environment as a way to enhance the Best Practice Model. These decisions were made as a result of the changing world around us. As teachers we have all seen more of our students, and possibly more of our own lives, occurring in a digital world.

For most of us, if we see that a child is engaged in a particular activity, we find ways to try to encourage that skill. If your child is coloring on the wall, you may initially be upset, but you may also be tempted to put up a chalkboard, or get an easel that they can use to encourage that skill. Who knows, that kid that started out painting on the wall may turn into the next Picasso or Van Gogh. In your classroom that may mean allowing students to choose what product would best represent their learning.

Now think of our students. The second they walk out of the building they are bombarded with digital options. Smart-phones, tablets, computers, apps, websites, and more are competing for their attention. If we don’t notice that and innovate towards that, we will lose some of our students. The way I see it, more and more, technology is a right for our students in their learning. Are there moments when it may not fit, or they may not use it? Yes! But it’s also important that we all recognize that devices and digital tools are becoming interconnected with our lives and with education.

I have had many conversations with teachers who fear that we aren’t “preparing students for the real world.” How can we accurately predict what that world will look like for our students? I struggle to predict what next week might look like, let alone predicting what the world will be like in 10 years when our students either have entered, or are entering the workforce. One thing I feel confident in telling you: they will need to know is how to use technology in appropriate and responsible ways. If our only solution for poor decisions with technology is to try to permanently take technology away from our students, we are doing them a disservice. Remember, our kids are 10, 11, and 12 year olds, and they are going to make mistakes, but going to the nuclear option of “you can’t use this anymore” doesn’t teach a child anything. However, taking the device away for a period of time, and then having a conversation about the repercussions of their actions creates a learning opportunity for a child.

Sometimes drastic measures need to be taken to maintain the kind of classroom experiences that our students need – things like a temporary ban on technology – but we have to go back to the fundamentals. To be relevant for our student we must use the best tools at our disposal. By avoiding the technology permanently we are missing out on amazing teachable moments.

Thinking about your classroom, where are successes that you have had that would not have been possible without technology? Have there been times that taking the technology out of a lesson has led to better engagement and learning? Share with us some of your opinions!

How can you motivate your students? (Part 2)

Last week I shared a TED Talk by Daniel Pink. If you haven’t watched it yet, take a little time to watch it. You can scroll down to the post below, and then come back to here.

Sometimes the things that we believe will motivate us actually hold back creativity.

How many times have you tried to incentivize your students? You let them all know that “if you do this, then you’ll get this…” Whatever you offer is something that you just know that your students will love, and yet they don’t fulfill your expectation, or you get a negative response. What I love about Pink’s talk is that he realizes that since rewards and punishments often don’t work, he shares some ideas that do work. What his research shows is that appealing to deeper motivations like autonomy, mastery, and purpose are the key. Here’s how he defines each:

Autonomy: “the urge to direct our own lives.”
Mastery: “the desire to get better and better at something that matters.”
Purpose: “the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.”

So, how do we take these ideas and use them to help motivate our students?

Autonomy: When I was in high school, I took science all 4 years. Biology was probably my least favorite, and Physics was the best. The difference was not so much the subject matter, but rather the way that we learned. My biology classroom had 30 desks with attached chairs. It was difficult to manipulate the space, and we were always told at the end of the class to be sure that our desks were lined up correctly (she had permanent marker outlines on the tile floor for the location of every piece of furniture in the room). On the other hand, my physics classroom was in a giant lab setting. There were lab tables at the back, and desks arranged in groups at the front. We didn’t have assigned seats, and could sit where we wanted every day. I didn’t always sit in the same place, my choice depended on what we were doing.

The more choice we provide our students, the more engaged they will be (think about the HSE21 Best Practice Model – there is a whole section on Student Choice). Look for any way you can to allow your students to have autonomy in their learning and they will be much more motivated to learn! If you keep the goal of learning the focus, there are hundreds, if not thousands of digital tools that allow our students to reach our main objectives. It may take a little longer to grade if everyone’s project is different, but where in the real world is every member of a team expected to produce an identical product?

The process... The journey... — The process… The journey…

Mastery: Historically it was the role of the teacher or educator to be the master of all information in the classroom – think back to an earlier post on Gatekeepers and Travel Guides – but anymore our students may be masters of some of the technology that we have them using, while we are still learning. It can be uncomfortable to admit that students know more about something than we do, but in this day and age, anyone can be a master of anything.

Allow your students to be the masters sometimes. If there is someone who figured a new idea out with a tech tool, allow them to share with the class. We as teachers can become the learners right along with our students. What if we allowed that student to present during a staff meeting? Think of how empowering that would be from the student’s perspective!

It's all about the purpose! — It’s all about the purpose!

Purpose: If students feel that the only reason they have to learn your material is to pass a test, that does not help the student feel like they are contributing to “something larger than themselves.” What if their learning was part of a service project to help others? Or what if their project solved a problem here at our school, or in our city? Have your students find how what they are learning can connect to a local need, and they will see purpose in what they learn.

Another way to think about motivation is through the Six C’s of Engagement (Choice, Collaboration, Connection, Challenge, Communication, and Commotion). If you want to see more, click here. If you want your students to truly be motivated, use some of the strategies here to move beyond consequences and punishments, and move to a realm of true motivation!

What are some of your most successful motivation strategies? Share below so that we can all have more ideas!

How much is enough?

In this week’s post, I would like to build upon the ideas of a post from before winter break titled Choosing to Cheat. The concept of that post was built on the idea that we don’t have an unlimited amount of time in our days to be able to fulfill all of our priorities. Feel free to go back to that post if you would like.

For some of us it is difficult thing to think about cheating at anything. We might think “If I skimp here, my students might not get it.” Or we might say “If it doesn’t look pretty and perfect, I won’t feel as proud of it.” There are a lot of people who spend a lot of time in this school building. They are all effective or highly effective teachers. Sometimes it’s hard to leave the building knowing that there is more that could be done. But for all the teachers who put in long hours, there are others who do not spend that amount of time in the building. Does that mean that the teachers who spend less time are less effective? Or is there something more to the story?

In order to be more effective in our time management, we have to think about the concept of the minimum effective dose (MED). Tim Ferriss, the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, defines the MED as:

“the smallest dose that will produce the desired outcome. Anything beyond the MED is wasteful. To boil water, the MED is 212 degrees Fahrenheit at standard air pressure. Boiled is boiled. Higher temperatures will not make it more boiled. High temperatures will just consume more resources that could be used for something more productive.”

There are lots of examples out there of people who have cut back the amount of time spent, only to find that it actually improved their outcome. As a runner I always taper the amount I run in the last couple of weeks leading up to a big event so that I will feel fresh on the day of the race. Every year at the end of the NFL season you hear analysts arguing about whether a certain team should rest their star players prior to the playoffs. I follow a couple of blogs that post daily, but rarely do I have time to read them every day. On the days I miss a post, I feel as though I am missing something that could be important. If the authors of those blogs cut back to 3 posts a week, I wouldn’t be upset. I might actually be able to read everything they post!

Ultimately, we have to remember that our audience are the kids sitting in our classroom. No matter how hard we work, they are only going to take in as much as they think is necessary to be able to complete your upcoming performance task. So think, are you trying to over boil the water in your classroom? Remember, water temp can’t go over 212 degrees, no matter how much energy you put in. At the same time, no amount of overwork will cram more info into your students’ heads if they can’t absorb it. Keep your focus on your goals and what you want to accomplish. Try to reduce the wasteful or ineffective things we do, and ultimately we will use our time in more valuable ways! In the Choosing to Cheat post, I shared the chart below. Focus on placing your energy in the activities that we believe will help our students grow.

Use this to help guide your thinking and the areas where you may choose to cheat.

As for how much time to spend at school, I can’t say that there is a correct answer to that questions. At different phases in my life there have been different amounts of time spent. I feel that through appropriate time management, we can all do our job to the best of our ability, and meet the needs of our students in a reasonable amount of time.

Have you ever tried to over boil the water? What are some of the things you cut when your realized you were doing more than you actually had to? Share in the comments below!

Choosing to Cheat

There have been periods in my career in education where I felt as though I was living at school. Back in my coaching days I would often arrive at school around 6, work on grading, planning, or whatever else needed to be done, teach a full day, coach my team, come back to my room to do more work, head home for a quick dinner, grade something else, go to bed, and do it again tomorrow. In those days I was cheating my other priorities – my family, my friends, and my health. How many times have you looked at your to-do list and felt that there was no way you could get it all done? I know that there are days that I walk in to my office with 3 things on my to-do list that are left over from yesterday. Over the course of a day I may add several new items to it, but am not able to cross anything off my list. In those moments, I choose to cheat. I can’t do it all. There are 24 hours in a day, and 168 hours in a week. Sometimes there are things we can’t make it through.

Do you ever feel like your to do list looks like this?!?!

We all have important things in our life that take up some of those 168 hours in a week, and while we are all professional educators, there are other priorities in everyone’s life. Here’s the thing about choosing to cheat though: we have to be strategic in the ways that we choose to cheat. I keep to-do lists (some are on my phone in the reminders app, some are jotted on scraps of paper in my office) and when I create them, I also prioritize them. Certain things can only be done when there are students here, others can be done first thing in the morning, or after my afternoon bus duty. Phone calls to parents – that can happen anytime (thank goodness for *67 and the speakerphone feature so that I can call while I’m in the car). When you look at the things that you are doing in your classroom, prioritize them. Think about the needs of your learners – are you doing things to help the students in your classroom grow? If you can’t emphatically say yes, then that may be something you need to choose to cheat on. Keep in mind, cheating isn’t about slacking off, but rather it’s about making sure you are intentional in how you use the time you have.

Throughout the process of HSE²¹, one of the messages that Danielle and I have always tried to share with you is that we don’t expect you to do it all right now. When our teaching and learning team (Jan Combs, Phil Lederach, and Stephanie Loane) came to present a few weeks back, one of their slides talked about “More of this” and “Less of this.” Take a look at that slide to the right. If you’re spending a lot of time in the less of column, that may be something that you need to reexamine. It’s also important to look at the HSE²¹ Best Practice Model (below) to guide our intentional thinking about what is best for the learners who walk into our classroom every day.

Think about the things that you value most. Do you devote your time accordingly? If not, you are probably stressed out, unhappy, and might feel unsuccessful. To be a good teacher, you have to be in the right mental place. Think about the choices you make and how they are benefitting you and your students. If you are making choices that don’t benefit you and your students, try to find a way to make a change. Be willing to set aside things that do not hold as much value, and instead focus on the things that are most valuable to you and the students in your class.

What are some of the ways you choose to cheat? Are there things you have given up, or maybe don’t do as often? Maybe there are things you focus on for a while, then let fall out of focus, only to come back to later. Share in the comments below how choosing to cheat has helped you to be a better teacher and a more rounded person.

The View from 518

Tag: Student Centered