Observing a master teacher in action is like watching an artistic scientist (or scientific artist) at work. And the results, like great artwork or a scientific breakthrough, challenge and inspire. A school in Mobile, AL invited us to observe writing instruction taught by a teacher who attended a Writer’s Stylus course last summer. . . . → Read More: What Teaching Can Be]]>

Observing a master teacher in action is like watching an artistic scientist (or scientific artist) at work. And the results, like great artwork or a scientific breakthrough, challenge and inspire. A school in Mobile, AL invited us to observe writing instruction taught by a teacher who attended a Writer’s Stylus course last summer. While I could talk for hours about the learning we witnessed, I’ll limit myself to three observations.

1. Scaffolding enables success. Scaffolding involves taking a task, such as writing a descriptive paragraph, and identifying individual steps or confined actions that ultimately enable success with the larger task. For example, rather than turning first-graders loose to struggle with writing a full descriptive paragraph, the teacher may have each student compose one sentence that explains the look or smell or feel of an object. Once several sentences have been generated, the teacher coaches each student through the process of turning individual thoughts into a cohesive paragraph. (And if you are questioning whether first grade students can write such paragraphs, the answer is, “YES!” In one paragraph, after describing its looks and smell, a first-grader described a banana’s consistency as being “like very thick maple syrup.”) At every grade level we observed, scaffolded teaching produced notable learning and remarkable writing.
2. Engagement is not “entertainment.” The trio of teacher, task, and time creates an environment where engagement flourishes. The teacher conveys a passion for the material and for the students’ work with it; the task connects students to thinking and action that intrinsically rewards effort and provides a basis for instructive feedback; the time is at least adequate for allowing students to discover a passion for the material and complete the task. I sat with a couple fourth-grade boys as they took on the challenge of using personification to enliven a few mundane sentences. While they had a list of choices, the boys decided to personify the noun city. I was intrigued because of the options, this noun probably presented the greatest challenge. One boy said, “Um…The city…bellowed!” Again, I was intrigued; bellowed would not have been the first verb that came to my mind. Discussion then focused on what a city might bellow. “Something like 9-11,” one boy suggested. They agreed that important news might be something a city could bellow. They ended up with a sentence that began, “The city bellowed its news of…” They considered other verbs during the discussion, but they loved the idea of a city bellowing, and they were so engaged that the challenge was not discouraging. Their success at personifying city in this way was its own reward; they were discovering a passion for writing. The teacher’s passion initiated this interaction, and the task and time to overcome its challenge did the rest. No song, no dance, not even wifi required.
3. Excellent teaching cultivates life-changing learning. Seeing students apply revision skills and carefully craft their writing would have been enough to excite me about what was happening in these classrooms. But deeper learning revealed the full value of this approach to teaching writing. While composing and crafting personal narratives, students also learned how to reflect on their own experiences. One student chose to write about climbing a wall on an obstacle course during summer camp. She accepted the challenge but failed to reach to top of the wall. As she thought about the experience and what she may have gained from it, she realized she was one of only three girls who attempted to scale the wall. Her personal narrative illustrated the benefits of trying, of giving one’s best effort, even when success is not guaranteed. A “failure” became a type of victory through reflection and writing. While she still would like to reach the top of that wall, she knows doing so will require her trying again; nothing is gained without an attempt. What an insight! As the teacher discussed this student’s writing and the personal narratives of other students, it became clear that the learning transcended the use of active verbs and wise word choices. The students learned something about themselves, something about processing their experiences, and something about those experiences being a gateway to deeper understandings. This is a picture of the influential teaching that initially drew many of us to the profession.

Never underestimate what excellence in teaching can spark. As Dr. Robert Brooks reminds us, we need to tell ourselves, “Today may be the day that I say or do something significant in the life of a child.” And if we strive for excellence, the number of those days may outnumber the less influential ones. I know one school where, at least in writing instruction, such meaningful days are becoming the norm.

I’m challenged. I’m inspired. Thank you, Heather and SPES, for the reminder of what teaching can be!

This question received significant attention at the November 2011 Learning and the Brain Conference in Boston. With the changes in our world and in our students, what should we, then, teach?

The question reveals a consequential recognition: some of what we’ve taught and how we’ve been teaching it . . . → Read More: What should we be teaching?]]> What should we be teaching?

This question received significant attention at the November 2011 Learning and the Brain Conference in Boston. With the changes in our world and in our students, what should we, then, teach?

The question reveals a consequential recognition: some of what we’ve taught and how we’ve been teaching it lacks relevance for today’s world and today’s learners. Specifically, several presenters suggested education’s over-reliance on questions that have one right answer may prevent teachers from emphasizing the content and skills that will benefit today’s students. Tony Wagner¹, Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, refers to this tendency as “answer-itis” and defines it as education’s attempts to “answer questions that are misdirected.”

Wagner’s “Survival Skills”

What we should emphasize instead, according to Wagner, are seven “survival skills” that today’s students (and many of today’s working adults) need for thriving in an increasingly technological world. Here are his suggested emphases and a few of my thoughts:

1. Critical thinking and problem solving. Wagner suggests one reason critical thinking is not emphasized more in education is because we, as educators, have failed to define it. I agree. For years I’ve heard teachers talk about “critical thinking” in vague, “we must” terms, or limiting critical thinking to the use of a questioning taxonomy. Climbing a ladder of questioning does not teach students how to think critically. We need to not only define critical thinking, but also identify the knowledge and skills that contribute to it. With those elements identified, we can begin to explore the developmental nature of each. That, in turn, may provide a more defined “road map” for intentionally equipping students for critical thinking.
2. Collaboration and leading through influence. Many schools address this idea directly in their mission statements. Many others have mission statements that imply it. We want to graduate individuals who “make a mark” in the world, who can see needs and meet them, accept challenges and attack them, and create opportunities and capitalize on them. In an increasingly connected world, collaboration becomes inevitable. Again, we tend to view this as a vague ability that we may “grade” on the right side or back of a report card (e.g., “Works well with others.”). But is there more we could do? Could we teach students, for example, how to view conflict as a “landscape” with challenges, strategies for overcoming those challenges, and with practice in using those strategies? In her book Failure to Communicate, Holly Weeks² lays out just such approaches to turning conflict into opportunities for collaboration. As for leading through influence, Howard Gardner offers some insight on the “minds of the future”: disciplined, synthesizing, creative, respectful, and ethical. What are we doing, within classrooms and through educational systems, to develop these influential minds?
3. Agility and adaptability. Resilience and the learning mindset have gotten researcher’s attention, and studies have provided teachers with both insights into why effort is more valuable than immediate success (or “fatal failure”) and strategies for fostering a correct mindset in students. We need intentional, daily action to develop these foundational drivers of success in our students.
4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism. Wagner made it clear: “Innovation is fostered by prizing failure.” The role of failure in learning, and how teachers respond to it, has received significant attention, especially since Carol Dweck’s important research on mindsets. In short, students who see failure as part of learning generally outperform students who see failure as “fatal.” By failure, I do not mean receiving a poor grade because no work has been completed. Resilience enables failure—an effort that falls short of the target—to become a gateway for learning better ways of thinking and/or doing. How can teachers foster this critical mindset in students? Dr. Robert Brooks offers one of my favorite examples. When a student’s effort falls short, Brooks suggests the following approach: “This strategy you’re using doesn’t seem to be working. Let’s figure out why and how we can change the strategy so that you are successful.”³ Study this simple statement. Note how Brooks 1) focuses on the strategy (not the student), 2) acknowledges that the strategy is what is not working (again, not the student), 3) accepts responsibility for helping to identify the problem and its solution, 4) emphasizes that the strategy can be changed, and 5) communicates a belief that the student can and will be be successful. Approaches like this foster resilience, which is critical for creating and maintaining an environment that invites initiative and entrepreneurialism.
5. Effective oral and written communication. I’ve advocated an increased emphasis on and improved teaching of writing for several years. In many classrooms, teaching writing is equated with teaching grammar. This is unfortunate. Research indicates that almost no, if any, relationship exists between mechanics instruction and writing achievement. You could train world-champion sentence diagrammers and never produce a student with exemplary writing skills. The relationship just does not exist. Teaching students to write well involves teaching them to revise, to craft the raw material of a first draft into communication that deserves attention. Thankfully, programs like Writer’s Stylus have started to shift the classroom focus to teaching students revision skills. We need such an emphasis in every classroom.
6. Accessing and analyzing information. Dr. Judy Willis⁴ echoes this idea, stating that executive functions, like analysis, are the skill set for 21st century success. The role technology plays in upping the importance of such thinking skills is obvious. We can no longer “prepare children for a digital world in a factory, ‘factoid,’ system. Students need to be prepared to evaluate new information & modify their understandings as new info comes available.” We must be more intentional in equipping students with thinking skills of the highest quality.
7. Curiosity and imagination. According to Wagner, innovation is the new engine of our economy; being curious and creative now drives professional accomplishment. Curiosity empowers self-directed learning, and I appreciate W. Gardner Campbell’s recent discussion of it being a necessary goal of education. Campbell states, “I can only conclude that effective education for the 21^st century must trade compliance for curiosity. The assignments we craft, the curricula we plan, the degrees we grant must share a core commitment to help our students go beyond the limits they imagine for themselves…” No longer will mastering one skill or one static body of knowledge enable a lifetime of employment. We must be equipping students with the ability to direct their own learning and instill in them the curiosity to empower such growth.

In short, we risk maintaining educational systems that grow increasingly irrelevant if we do not attend to and respond to changes in society. While a great education is an asset in every time and place, what constitutes a “great education” may change as cultures advance. When was the last time we really looked around us—outside the walls of our institutions—and asked ourselves, “What should we, then, be?”

It may be time for just such an examination.

References

1. Wagner, T. “Teaching, Leading, and Learning in the 21^st Century,” (presentation at Learning and the Brain: Using Brain Research to Enhance Cognitive Skills for the Future, Boston, MA, November 18-20, 2011).
2. Weeks, H., Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2008).
3. Brooks, R., “Mindsets for School Success: Effective Educators and Resilient, Motivated Learners.” (presentation at Learning and the Brain: Using Brain Research to Enhance Cognitive Abilities and Achievement, November 2007).
4. Willis, J. “Brain Research to Help Students Develop Their Highest Cognitive Potential,” (presentation at Learning and the Brain: Using Brain Research to Enhance Cognitive Skills for the Future, Boston, MA, November 18-20, 2011).

Image

‘Pillar of the Times’ (The Hartford Times Building, Hartford CT) by jwcreate.com

Testing’s good! Testing’s bad!

Take this acronym and call us in the morning!

Here comes our superhero! No, it’s just a guy with an eraser that can change standardized test answers in a single swipe.

The dictionary describes determination as a “firmness of purpose,” “perseverance,” “intentness,” “a state of indefatigableness.”

As with most tone-related aspects of the classroom, an atmosphere of determination begins with the teacher. I believe every great—and by great I mean not just . . . → Read More: The Environment of Achievement, Part 3]]> Hope. Humility. Determination. How do these characteristics contribute to an atmosphere of achievement?

The dictionary describes determination as a “firmness of purpose,” “perseverance,” “intentness,” “a state of indefatigableness.”

As with most tone-related aspects of the classroom, an atmosphere of determination begins with the teacher. I believe every great—and by great I mean not just instructive, but inspiring—teacher is him or herself a determined learner. An excellent professor I had in college beat this drum in almost every class: “The true professional never stops growing. He or she is always learning, always growing.” As Karen Cushman puts it, “…expertise is a process, not a product…”¹

Why? Because being a determined learner keeps learning an ever-recent experience. And when we are engaged in learning, we experience failure. We experience the need for feedback. We experience the need to adopt and maintain a learning mindset. We engage in targeted practice. We maintain a passion for learning and a fresh awareness of how it benefits the learner. These experiences translate in two ways. First, as a learner ourselves, we better understand the needs of our students. Second, as we work to meet the needs of students, we are more likely to engage in methods and practices that we know to be effective, such as increasing instructive feedback during learning. By  consistently engaging in learning, we become more mindful of ways we can optimize student learning.

We can also help establish a classroom environment where determination can flourish. Here are a few ways I see this happening:

1. The teacher targets practice according to individual needs. No one likes doing the same thing over and over just to complete a task. Certainly there are things in life that must be done according to a system just so they are accomplished (e.g., mowing the lawn). However, learning does not progress if activity is only directed toward what is already understood. In fact, if such activity deepens anything it’s a student’s resentment for “busy work.” Masterful teachers direct students to activity that will sufficiently challenge each individual while also keeping success in each one’s sight. Targeted practice helps students recognize a purpose in their activity, and that fosters motivation for completing it. When combined with instructive feedback, such activity taps into the brain’s perception of movement:
   

   Professor of biology James E. Zull suggests that providing teacher feedback triggers the learner’s sense of progress. This sensation ignites activity in the brain’s basal structures, neural regions associated with pleasure and reward. Such “active learning,” claims Zull, makes learning “pleasurable and effective for developing concepts and applications.”²

   Blanket activity, often the norm in many classes, does little to foster student determination in students. Determination is more likely to flourish when a learner can see purpose in activity and witness progress toward a goal. Since not all learners begin at the same point in learning, what they need to progress will vary.
   With her team of student researchers, Karen Cushman³ identified characteristics of “practice that gets the desired result of increasing mastery”:

   • It has an express purpose. Knowing why they are engaging in practice helps students direct their attention and actions.
   • It demands attention and focus. Without attention to what they are doing and the results, students will fail to process the data that will actually strengthen their learning. In other words, mindless practice is worthless practice.
   • It involves conscious repetition or rehearsal. Repetition is not the enemy unless repeating the actions does nothing but keep a student busy. Mindful repetition, in which the student frequently analyzes and adjusts his practice, leads to mastery.
   • It is geared to the individual. Helping a student attack a weakness prompts improvement.
   • It is not inherently enjoyable. However, feedback during practice helps students recognize its value. To summarize Daniel Pink⁴, authentic learning = meaning + feedback.
   • It develops new skills and knowledge. It is challenging enough to require true effort.
   • It applies to new endeavors. There is a recognition that meeting the challenge will enable the student to accomplish something more than is currently within reach.
2. Relatedly, the teacher helps students notice their learning. Little feeds determination like recognizing results from effort. I once observed a middle school math teacher who understood the motivation and determination such recognition can generate. Each student had a file folder with a graphic representation of the various skills in the current unit of study. The skills built on one another until students would be able to solve complex problems that would require the combined use of the individual skills. As she observed evidence of mastery, the teacher would have the student pull out the file folder and fill in the next section of the graphic. As the students did this, they became aware of their progress, both of how far they’d “moved” from the start and how much closer they were to the goal. This simple tool helped each student become aware of progress without the burden of comparing with classmates’ achievements. With a goal clearly in sight and a way to track progress, these students were doggedly determined learners.

   
   This shouldn’t be surprising. As adults, we grow more determined when we’re given such awareness and feedback. For example, I’m a runner. I use a gizmo that tracks details of all my runs, such as my distance, pace, and total time. When I upload this data, I can compare it to all my previous runs and note my progress. No matter the results, noting my progress (and even lack of it sometimes) delivers a dose of determination—to run faster, farther, more faithfully, etc.

   Researchers often refer to this as something like the “gamer effect,” gamer being the player of video games. When you play a video game and reach the end of a challenge, you move on to the next level. You always know where you are in relation to the game’s ultimate challenge and conclusion. You can “see” progress. Seeing progress deepens determination.

Determination combines focus and intentional action. It is a willingness, even an eagerness, to engage in “practice that gets the desired result of increasing mastery.” A classroom where mastery increases can certainly be considered an atmosphere of achievement.
Hope. Humility. Determination. Are these the characteristics of my classroom and school?

Sources

1. Cushman, K., Fires in the Mind (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010), 87.
2. Washburn, K.D., The Architecture of Learning: Designing Instruction for the Learning Brain (Pelham, AL: Clerestory Press, 2010) 163.
3. Cushman (2010), 71-85.
4. Pink, D.H., Drive: The Surprising Truth Behind What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009).

Image

• pinewood derby: wood putty, http://www.flickr.com/photos/73645804@N00/5446363559

Hope is word #1, a characteristic of an atmosphere that enables optimal achievement.

The second: humility.

The dictionary suggests . . . → Read More: The Environment of Achievement, Part 2]]> “But hope is not disconnected from action or result; it is the drive that propels action and result. It is not an ungrounded feeling but a belief that action can bring about change.”

Hope is word #1, a characteristic of an atmosphere that enables optimal achievement.

The second: humility.

The dictionary suggests it involves a modest view of one’s own importance.

At this point I could rail against the lack of humility we often see in our public personas. I won’t, except to mention its potential influence on our thinking and on that of our students. The message we get from the media: to be successful see yourself as more important/gifted/intelligent/_____ than the next guy, and find a camera crew to capture your bravado. This viewpoint is actually detrimental to a learning mindset.

Why? What does humility have to do with learning?

Humility opens the mind to learning. In Fires in the Mind, Kathleen Cushman makes a convincing argument for valuing as initial motivation for learning.¹ We become interested in something new when we value the relationship we have with others who already know something about it (e.g., a son becoming a baseball player like his father), the products we can produce by knowing more than we do (e.g., a photographer who pursues mastering a new camera lens), and/or the satisfaction we get from having our questions and curiosities addressed (the child who tears a computer apart to discover what’s inside that makes it work). We value something other than our previously gained understandings. We place ourselves in the role of humble learner rather than overconfident know-it-all.

Note the implications for us as educators. To create and maintain a learning environment characterized by humility, we need to attend to our relationships with students. (Do I establish relationships with students that enable me to potentially inspire their interests in new learning?) We need to reveal what new learning will enable students to produce. (Do I know how what I teach has value beyond the classroom? and do I engage students in using what they learn beyond the classroom?) We need to foster students’ curiosity. (Do I use the power of questions and “I wonder…” statements to engage students’ attention and thinking?)

Humility makes the mind receptive to feedback. To summarize Daniel Pink in an overly succinct way, the equation for motivating learning is meaning + feedback.² If valuing initiates learning, feedback maintains the interest and deepens new understanding. But not just any feedback will fill this vital role. A paper returned to a student after three days with nothing more than a “B” or an “84” at the top does more harm than good. Why? Because it sparks a prideful, protective response. Either the student will pretend not to care about the grade (“I know I’m better than you think I am.”) or the student will argue to regain the points that were mysteriously lost (“I’ll prove that I’m better than you think I am.”). Either way the opportunity for learning from mistakes is likely lost.

To be effective, feedback must be part of learning; while the cement of new knowledge or understandings is still wet, the teacher needs to engage students in discussion, offering redirection, encouragement and exhortation, and additional challenge. Instructive feedback should have the goal of enabling each individual student learn as deeply and achieve as highly as possible.

How does instructive feedback contribute to an environment characterized by humility? First, the teacher models humility through the way feedback is given. Dr. Robert Brooks uses the term “we statements” to describe an effective approach.

Second, feedback communicates that error is part of learning and is expected. In Kathleen Cushman’s research, one student suggested that feedback during learning enabled her to laugh at herself and use the error as a prompt for additional learning. Without the feedback, she would have continued to practice her errors and have become frustrated when her progress stagnated. Such frustration often activates a defense response rather than a mindset that accepts and even seeks feedback.

Finally, feedback maintains the correct perception of learning as being endless. We can always know more, understand better, or improve how we do something. Feedback keeps us challenged and helps us avoid feeling like we know all we need to know. We accept the humility that comes with recognizing we never reach perfection in any area or with any topic.

In this area, I’m concerned about students for whom school learning seems to come easily. They often absorb and live by the idea that being smart means not having to put forth effort. This erroneous belief about intelligence has significant, negative ramifications for their learning and achievement.

When working with the teachers, I’m often asked, “What do I do with the students who master the concepts or skills easily and quickly?” A question I use to prompt my own thinking in this area is, “What does the next level of achievement with this concept or skill look like?” I then use the answer to direct my feedback to these students.

Implications for us as educators? We need to be providing students with supportive and helpful feedback during learning. (Am I engaging my students in such conversations?) This includes challenging students to keep learning, keep refining, keep extending their knowledge and skill, even when the immediate task is completed easily. (Do I keep every student challenged and growing? Do I pursue learning myself so that I model the endless nature of mastering new concepts and abilities?)

Humility maintains curiosity (and vice versa). Curiosity is the name we give to the state of having unanswered questions. And unanswered questions, by their nature, help us maintain a learning mindset. When we realize that we do not know all there is to know about something in which we are interested, we thirst. We pursue. We act as though what we do not know is more important than what we do. Humility allows us to question; asking questions keeps us humble.

How do we spark curiosity in the classroom? One of my favorite suggestions and examples comes from one of my favorite teachers, Dr. Judy Willis:

Hoping for ways to energize the next day’s math lesson for her middle school students, Dr. Willis visited a supermarket, seeking an inexpensive item she could display on the students’ desks as they entered the classroom. She settled on a small vegetable, not knowing exactly how she would use it. The next morning, Dr.

Willis started teaching the lesson without explaining the radishes the students discovered on their desks. At the lesson’s conclusion, the students asked about the radishes. Still uncertain of the answers, Dr. Willis replied, “Why do you think I put a radish on your desk for today’s lesson?” The students offered several explanations. They connected mathematical concepts with their sensory experience of the radish, making associations that seemed sensible to them. Though Dr. Willis could have “come up with something” to share as an explanation, the students’ thinking generated more connections, and their discovery of these connections fostered deeper understanding and better memory formation. In short, the students were engaged in significant elaboration of the day’s mathematical content prompted by its curiosity-generating pairing with a common vegetable.³

Curiosity, having unanswered questions, propels learning. (Am I making serious efforts to spark curiosity in my students?)

We may think of hope as looking up. However, that should not prime our thinking to view humility as looking down. Humility is looking around, finding out what we do not know, seeing what’s available for learning it, and pursuing it until we become, we produce, or we satiate.

How do we foster an atmosphere of humility in our classrooms, schools, systems? Here are the questions I’m using to prompt my thinking:

• Do I establish relationships with studnets that enable me to potentially inspire their interests in new learning?
• Do I know how what I teach has value beyond the classroom? and do I engage students in using what they learn beyond the classroom?
• Do I use the power of questions and “I wonder…” statements to engage students’ attention and thinking?
• Am I engaging my students in conversations that capitalize on feedback’s contribution to learning?
• Do I keep every student challenged and growing?
• Do I pursue learning myself so that I model the endless nature of mastering new concepts and abilities?
• Am I making serious efforts to spark curiosity in my students?

What questions would you add?

References

1. Cushman, K., Fires in the Mind: What Kids Can Tell Us About Motivation and Mastery (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010).
2. Pink, D.H., Drive: The Surprising Truth Behind What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009).
3. Washburn, K.D., The Architecture of Learning: Designing Instruction for the Learning Brain (Pelham, AL: Clerestory Press, 2010), 45.

Images

humility http://www.flickr.com/photos/49503002139@N01/3710722003

Curiosity http://www.flickr.com/photos/94859200@N00/540245890

No, not age, not time, nor even practice. (Though all these play a role.)

For decades, researchers have . . . → Read More: The Environment of Achievement, Part 1]]> Three words grabbed my attention. Ideas that can make the difference between a t-ball novice and A-Rod, between nephew Johnny’s string recital performance and a Yo-Yo Ma concert, between the weekend jogger and Paula Radcliffe.

No, not age, not time, nor even practice. (Though all these play a role.)

For decades, researchers have pitched their tents in one of two camps: either nature (i.e., genetics) makes us who we are, or nurture (i.e., environment) does. For every study claiming to capture the flag for one camp, a counter study contends that it retains the banner.

In The Genius in All of Us, David Shenk argues that the interaction of genes and environment produces the individuals we become. Environment, contends Shenk, plays a leading role in how genes are “expressed.” But let’s set the science and the debate aside for now and simply consider what allows ability to reach its fullest potential.

This brings us back to those three words. They appear in the opening of David Shenk’s book, and they should play a leading role in education: hope, humility, and determination.

Word #1: hope. Of the three words, this one gets the most negative press. Cynics point out that hoping never made something happen nor brought anything into existence. Some even suggest hope is damaging, viewing it as wishful thinking that prevents the action needed to generate change.

Such arguments fail to look behind results; they fail to consider the causes of observable effects. They’re akin to arguing that the pleasure of a warm fire on a cold night is unrelated to, and certainly not dependent on, the match used to ignite the flame.

But hope is not disconnected from action or result; it is the drive that propels action and result. It is not an ungrounded feeling but a belief that action can bring about change. No great change has ever been attempted without hope, even if the belief was never voiced.

The dictionary associates several concepts with hope: expectation, belief, desire, good. I’d add another: resilience. Here’s why:

Resilience involves maintaining hope despite failure. Set-backs in life are inevitable, whether one is trying to strut across a narrow balance beam or learn to balance lopsided equations. Response to setbacks makes the difference between progress and stagnation, and hope motivates forward movement. Students need to learn to remain positive, believing that hard work can eventually overcome most setbacks and that the effort can yield beneficial and satisfying results. Relatedly…

Resilience involves embracing failure as an element of learning and progress.Hope can endure difficulties when the difficulties are seen as revealers of weaknesses that can be targeted and tweaked. Once recognized, weaknesses can become the focus of the efforts that lead to eventual success. (If students are not failing—encountering challenges—in your classroom, their learning may be minimal or even non-existent.)

David Shenk shares a compelling illustration. Basketball great

Michael Jordan would use

informal, pick-up games to work on

skills he knew were his weakest. While others in these games relied on doing what they already knew they could, Jordan

analyzed his setbacks, identified their causes, and then worked to correct them. The hope of eventual success made failure something to seek rather than avoid.

As teachers, we have a critical role to play in helping students perceive failure correctly. The feedback we give students can make the difference between failure that focuses effort and failure that is fatal to further attempts.

Finally, resilience involves being able to change direction. Failure is easy to repeat. You simply do the exact same thing you did previously while expecting the result to be different. (I believe this was Einstein’s definition of insanity.) It takes effort to consider alternative approaches and to maintain the hope that making such changes can yield better results.

To help students grow into individuals who do not view failure as fatal, we must nurture their spirits, helping them maintain hope, especially when learning is challenging.

Some questions I’ve been pondering lately include:

• How resilient is my hope in the face of challenge?
• How do I convey hope when my students face challenges and obstacles?
• Is my classroom/school/district a place characterized by hope and its accompanying momentum?
• How am I modeling resilient hope?

What questions would you add?

Images

Shape of a hoper http://www.flickr.com/photos/36613169@N00/449902272

Shahab http://www.flickr.com/photos/11037770@N00/297719275

Confession: as a student, I usually hate group work. I know, I know. Having students work in groups reaps a bounty of benefits, including boosting students’ social skills and upping the number of “happy campers” in the classroom. Such findings filter through my thinking when I’m preparing to teach, so I do use . . . → Read More: Using Groups Effectively: 10 Principles]]>

Confession: as a student, I usually hate group work. I know, I know. Having students work in groups reaps a bounty of benefits, including boosting students’ social skills and upping the number of “happy campers” in the classroom. Such findings filter through my thinking when I’m preparing to teach, so I do use group interaction, hoping that the promises from its advocates will be realized. Occasionally they are; often they are not.

I recently attended a conference session featuring Keith Sawyer. In addition to being a jazz pianist (a musical collaborator), Sawyer is an expert on the effectiveness of group efforts. His presentation focused on what has been and potentially can be accomplished through collaboration, but he hinted that just getting people into groups is not the answer.

This piqued my curiosity, so I bought his book Group Genius. In it I’ve begun to find some answers to my questions: When are groups effective as means of learning? What tasks are better accomplished collaboratively than individually? How do you structure groups for optimal effectiveness and results?

Though his focus is on creativity, I think Sawyer’s insights apply to our use of groups to foster learning. Here are ten principles I’ve picked up:

1. Flow matters. Flow is a term used to describe a state of high engagement in which thoughts run freely and progress occurs, often without group members being conscious of it. However, flow is like intrinsic motivation; it can’t be created on demand. The best we can do as teachers is provide a classroom environment that fosters flow.
2. Conversation is key. Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: “Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity.” When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.¹ Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization.
3. Set a clear but open-ended goal. Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group’s final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point.
4. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a “motivator” that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to “keep one eye on the clock,” the group’s focus can be fully given to the task.
5. Do not appoint a group “leader.” In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group’s thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction.
6. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective.
7. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks—tasks in which a group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another—research suggests that better results develop when individual thinking precedes the pooling of ideas in a group setting. Researchers also suggest that alternating between individual and group work helps keep the work focused but not fixated—i.e., not limited to one aspect or detail of an idea or issue. (By the way, this weaving of individual and group interaction may be reason why technological or “electronic brainstorming” is often effective.)
8. “Divide and conquer” ? collaboration. When groups assign members to specific responsibilities for completing a task they undermine the thinking that collaboration can produce. Sawyer talks about creativity via collaboration as being “exponential,” meaning that it is constructed via conversation. One individual’s thought may inspire another group member’s insight, which in turn sparks new concepts for another. It is this emergent thinking that enables collaboration to accomplish what individual effort cannot.
9. Think threefold. Group tasks that produce the best results often have three defining characteristics: 1) they are novel, something students have not done before, 2) they feature a visual component, something that can be represented in nonverbal forms, and 3) they are relational, meaning they require the combining of ideas or components to be accomplished.
10. Be complementary. The best groups are composed of members who have enough familiarity with one another to be comfortable but who possess varied backgrounds and experiences. Again, because of how we typically use groups in classrooms, we tend to form groups around ability—if there is at least one “good student” in the group, we think something will get done. However, Sawyer suggests ability should be less of a consideration than diversity in experience. This can be challenging to accomplish but it’s worth considering when grouping students for collaborative tasks.

These insights have me rethinking groups, not whether or not to use them, but when and how to use them effectively. As with every aspect of teaching, using groups effectively requires mindful planning and attention to more than who works with whom. As Sawyer summarizes, “Putting people into groups isn’t a magical dust that makes everyone more creative. It has to be the right kind of group, and the group has to match the task.”²

References

1. Sawyer, K., Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 43.
2. Ibid., 73.

Images

• Four heads are better than one. http://www.flickr.com/photos/26406919@N00/279625345.
• OZ_ 1318. http://www.flickr.com/photos/30864080@N00/1414782810.