Motivation – Page 2

We Must Do More Than Fill Students’ Vessels

I was especially dissatisfied with my own teaching when I started.

Early in my teaching career, I was presented with a paradox that continues to shape my interests in education. When I was teaching high school computer application courses, my students would learn to use a word processor (in the day when stuents were likely to only have access to computers at school). I was very thorough and made sure they learned how to use nearly every feature (although word processors then had many fewer features than they do today!). We spent a lot of time on it, and together we worked hard so that nearly everyone would be successful on the challenging word processing test.

What surprised me, however, was that a few weeks later, students would return to me, announce that they had a paper to write, and ask me to show them how to use “that word processor thing” again!

I couldn't understand why these students didn't remember how to use the program. These were bright students who had had no problems during class, and who had done well on the test. Very little time had gone by since we had last used the word processor. There was no reason that they should not know how to use it.

There was obviously something I didn't understand about learning. It was the first time I started to question how learning took place, and prompted my inquiry into how people learn.

I fear that during my first few years of my teaching, all I had really taught most of my students was that I was knowledgeable within my field. I tried to convey my knowledge to my students but I was simply trying to “fill their vessels.”

The way I organized the curriculum wasn't even oriented toward learning; it was organized for teaching. I was mostly concerned with questions like when were the standardized tests and what would be on them, when would other teachers be teaching related ideas, what would kids need to know for the next course? All my content was organized the way an expert might look at it. It was neatly categorized and sequenced like it might be done by someone who was already familiar with the information.

I never asked myself how people might learn the same information. I never asked how experts had acquired their vast knowledge; was it through a logical sequence or some other order?

Some of my kids seemed to do okay, but not enough of my students to make me feel like I had done a satisfactory job. I knew I was teaching the way all my teachers had taught me, so I knew I was teaching correctly. But somehow contradictions, like with the word processor, kept happening, and I started to doubt if it really were the right way to teach…

Those contradictions and doubts led me to question my assumptions about teaching and learning. Eventually, I found tidbits that helped shape my work, such as the quote from the classical Greek philosopher, Plutarch, “A mind is a fire to kindled, not a vessel to be filled.“

My job wasn't to give students information but to inspire and nurture them. And like Ian Jukes says, “Teachers don't need to be fire kindlers, they need to become arsonists!”

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The Importance of Helping Students Save Face

Are your hard to teach and underachieving students friendly and kind? Easy to get along with?

Or are they often the students that drive your blood pressure up and tax your patience?

If your experience is like mine, I'm guessing many are in this second group. Getting frustrated with their behavior and performance is an understandable and logical reaction. And speaking to them sharply is often a very human and logical response to their behavior.

But I had an enlightening experience with Josh, one of my challenging students, that helped me rethink things some…

Josh was the kind of student it seemed I had to talk to every five minutes. One day, when I had finally had enough with Josh, I took him out into the hall to talk to him. When I asked him what was up, he responded, “You don’t like me!”

I was really surprised by his statement and asked him what he meant by that. I said, “I live near you and! when I’m out for my walks, we stop and talk. I tease you, which I only do with students I like. I always ask you how you’re doing and I’m interested in what you do. What do you mean I don’t like you?”

Josh said, “You yelled at me in front of the class.”

Now, Josh's actions had warranted a sharp response, he had been disruptive and out of line. But clearly such a response did not lead to Josh settling down. It had not helped me be more successful with Josh.

And suddenly I realized it wasn't about what Josh deserved for his actions (to be chastised or punished), but rather, about what would get me the results I desired (Josh settling down so I could teach the whole class).

I realized that working with Josh (and probably other hard to teach students) would require more psychology than it would require logic.

I started by reminding Josh, “You know, I need you to behave so I can teach all thirty kids in the class. When I’m talking to you every five minutes, I really can’t teach the other twenty-nine.” He had certainly heard this frequently from his other teachers.

But then I said something that really surprised him, “So, what do you need from me so you can do that?”

It was clear that, although he had had more than his share of dressings down, he wasn't used to being asked about his needs. When his jaw came up from off the ground, he said that all he needs is not to feel that I hate him. So success would depend on my not reacting sharply to Josh, especially in front of his classmates.

Josh had taught me about the effectiveness of allowing students to save face.

I have a friend in Louisiana who likes to remind me that one “aw shucks” wipes out a thousand “atta boys.” It doesn’t matter how many times we handle situations delicately with a student, the one time we are sharp with him in front of everyone else, we negate all of our past (positive) history.

Perhaps more than with any other group of students we work with, having a safe and respectful atmosphere is critical both to helping hard to teach students learn and to helping them behave in class. Whenever we are working to correct student behavior, the importance of relationship and having the right kind of environment become even more important (and we certainly seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time on the behavior of hard to teach students!).

Josh and I made an agreement that when Josh got to be “high energy,” I would come over next to his desk and discretely say, “Josh, do you remember what we talked about?” It was private and personal. No one else knew what we were talking about and, when done in an upbeat tone, didn’t even sound like I was admonishing him.

When we implemented the plan, I would just say it in a positive way, and he would say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” (with a smile) and settle down. I had to do that every once in a while, but he was much better at monitoring his own behavior. It even began to feel like we were working together on it, not against each other. Occasionally we would have to go back out into the hall, but it wasn’t all that often, certainly not daily or every five minutes like it used to be. It made a huge difference in my ability to work with the whole class and with Josh feeling safe and comfortable.

All because I found a way to let him save face. All because he taught me the importance of letting students save face.

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Kindling Fires of Curiosity

“A mind is a fire to kindled, not a vessel to be filled.” (Plutarch)

I am a Mainer who has lived in several homes heated by wood stoves, and have done living history, and have gone camping, so I am no stranger to trying to build fires.

Therefore, it won’t surprise you that my connection to this metaphor is deep.

Most folks know you can’t start a fire just by simply piling up logs and holding a match to them. What a lot of people don’t know is that that method doesn’t even work all that well when lighter fluid is applied (there is usually a short-lived flame that goes out without creating a sustainable fire – and you never want to use accelerant in an enclosed wood stove!)

Fire starters know that building fires is a two stage process: first you have to get the fire going, then you can feed the fire. Both have their own set of strategies. I think when most folks think of having a fire, they think mostly of the second phase and a lot less of the first. Further, I think most folks can feed a fire; it’s just a matter of not adding too much wood too soon (or things get too hot), not letting the coals burn too low (or there arent enough coals to keep the fire going), and adding wood in a way that allows a little air to circulate (or, again, the fresh logs won’t ignite). Even with these caveats, the strategies are fairly forgiving and it isn’t too hard to keep the fire going.

On the other hand, starting a fire isn’t particularly difficult, but it does take a little more strategy. And if you aren’t experienced with fire, these strategies may not be as obvious as those for keeping the fire going.

A good fire starts with some kindling (a variety of small sticks and pieces of dry wood that catch relatively quickly, but will burn long enough to catch the larger sticks and logs that will be added soon) and some tinder (such as newspaper, shavings, twigs, or dry grass) that will catch easily with a match and burn long enough to ignite the kindling.

Even with these components, you aren’t guaranteed a fire; they need to be used properly. The kindling should be stacked in one of a couple of ways: often with smaller kindling and newspaper organized in the center of larger kindling in a “log cabin” or “teepee” configuration. When you light the newspaper, it catches the small kindling, which in turn helps the larger pieces catch. Then, once those get going, you can (carefully) put on the first logs.

You don’t have to use much more strategy than that if the fire catches quickly and cleanly. But what if it doesn’t? Have you ever been camping and tried to light a campfire with damp wood? Or maybe you got the small kindling going, but the larger sticks weren’t catching well? What do you do? How do you get that fire going?

Do you take another match and hold it under the part of the log that isn’t burning?

Of course not! (And, yet, how often do we try that!?)

Instead, you blow where the wood is already burning. Or you add a little more kindling where it is burning. You can’t get your fire lit by attending to the part that isn’t burning. You get it burning by nurturing the fire that is already started and let it spread to the rest. In fact, paying attention to the part not burning will often let what little fire there is go out, leaving you with no fire at all…

Ok. Ok. I feel some of you getting noodgy, wanting to talk about the “logs.” (and yes, at this point, we’re starting to mix metaphors…) Are the logs seasoned (dry?) or are they still moist with sap or wet from a drenching? Sure, most folks can make a fire with well seasoned logs without really trying, but talking about unseasoned logs sounds a little like an argument about why you shouldn’t have to make a fire because some of the wood isn’t dry. I’ll even concede that there are probably some logs that can’t burn, no matter what. But those are few and far between, and should never be used as an excuse to avoid making a fire with less than perfect logs.

In truth, experienced fire builders can start a fire with the wood they have.

The fire building strategies above work well with both dry and damp logs. Whether you get a good fire raging or not probably has more to do with your kindling and tender, or how you nurture the fire, than it does with the logs themselves.

So perhaps, we just need to understand how fires ignite, catch, and burn :

Have we thought about what kindling and tinder we will use?
Which technique will we apply to the kindling and tinder?
How will we nurture the fire as we add the first logs?
How will we attend to damp and unseasoned wood to get it burning well?
How will we blow on the flames that are already burning, rather than hold a match under the unlit portion?
How will we monitor the fire and know just the right time to add to it so it doesn’t burn too hot or burn down and go out?

If teachers are fire builders, perhaps their primary job isn’t to give students information, but rather to inspire and nurture them as they work on their own learning. Sometimes when we are teaching hard to teach students we forget about their interests (don’t blow on the flames) or about making it interesting (adding a little more kindling to the flames) and instead keep plowing along through the curriculum (holding a match to an unlit log). Perhaps, we need to focus on how to use kindling and care to make them burn brightly.

In fact, Ian Jukes says, “Teachers don’t need to be fire kindlers, they need to become arsonists!”

Personal aside: This saying has spoken to me since early in my teaching career, and has certainly shaped my growth as an educator and my work with schools to reach all children. It probably even played some direct role in focusing my dissertation research on motivating underachieving students and in starting the Maine Center for Meaningful Engaged Learning.

At the very least, it has said something to me about changing my assumptions about what it was to teach. And when I think about schools serving all the children of all the people, and about easy-to-teach students and hard-to-teach students, and about students at various levels of engagement, I think we probably need to challenge our assumptions.

How might the fire building metaphor help you think about reaching your students or having conversations with your colleagues about reaching students?

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Making Lessons Interesting 2

It may not be possible to always tie curriculum into the students’ interests, even when teachers know their students well. I do believe, however, that we can make things interesting.

Take, for example, adjectives.

This is typically a topic that many students are less than enthusiastic to study (was that an understatement?). Even so, one of the university practicum students I was supervising (teacher candidates doing their sophomore student teaching) had planned a different kind of lesson designed to make adjectives interesting to students.

When the students came into the room, each pair of students had a little brown paper lunch bag. On the brown paper lunch bag was written one of the five senses. The practicum student began, “There is a mystery object in your brown paper lunch bag and what you are going to do is try and help us figure our what your mystery object is. What you and your partner are going to do is write down as many descriptive words as you can about your mystery object. Don’t take your mystery object out of the bag, because you don’t want anybody to see it, but write down as many descriptive words as you can. Each descriptive word should only relate to the sense written on your bag.”

For example, if the bag was labeled “sight,” the students could only write about what it looked like. If it said “taste” the students could only write about what it tasted like. If it said “hearing,” the students could only write about what it sounded like, etc.

So students generated their words and then the class regrouped and each pair read off their lists. When the other students could figure out what the mystery object was, just from the list of descriptive words, the whole class applauded! When the students could not figure out what the object was, my student teacher would say, “Wow, those were great descriptive words, but we didn’t figure out what it is yet. Why don’t you show us what it is and the rest of you now think of descriptive words for that sense that would have helped you figure it out!” And the students could often think of a couple words that would have helped the class.

When they were all done deducing the objects in the bags, the practicum student asked, “Do you know what we’ve been working with all day today? We’ve been working with adjectives. Adjectives are just descriptive words.” Then she would instruct the students to open their grammar books and do a series of exercises related to identifying and applying adjectives.

And the students did the assignment!

Have you ever seen kids willingly do assignments in the grammar book?!

It was because they were hooked; because she made it interesting to them first.

How do you try to hook students on a topic you are teaching?

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Making Lessons Interesting 1

Intrinsic motivation (things that we're interested in) is probably our most powerful motivator. Interest as a motivator is not just building on what students are already interested in. It is also about making things interesting.

Can you use novelty?
Can you make it a mystery?
Can you make it fun?
Can you make it interesting?

My doctorate focused on what motivates underachieving middle school students (article; dissertation). In the Underachievers Study, even though students thought that much of their work did not tie in with their interests, they did find some of the work interesting. This varied by the individual. Doris liked teachers sharing stories from their past. Cathy liked lessons related to government and books such as The Outsiders and Huck Finn, which related to the South, where she had lived as a young child. Ben thought his fourth grade teacher, who dressed up as story characters, was interesting.

There is a special category that motivates middle school students: “blood and guts.” Why do you think those “Grossology” books that we all love to hate sell so well? Because middle school kids love belching and farting, body parts and bodily fluids. They love anything disgusting! So anything, we can tie productively into belching and farting will capture their imaginations! Mrs. Edwards, a teacher in the study, reported that Ben also liked blood and guts and anything gory, “Ben loves books that have gory stuff things in them. He loved Edgar Allan Poe.”

When I was a university Practicum Supervisor (supervising sophomore student teachers during their first field experience), I was in a sixth grade science teacher’s classroom and they were introducing students to the microscope. A common introductory activity for working with microscopes is to look at the difference between plant cells and animal cells. Often the activity uses onions because they have large cells. The activity also often calls for using cells from inside their mouths. The students have to take a cotton swab, dab the inside of their cheeks, and put it on a slide.

What do all the sixth grade girls say at this point in the activity? “Ewwwww, gross!” But they almost always follow that immediately with, “Let me do it!”

What do you do to make your lessons interesting?

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Student Motivation: What Level of Engagement Are Your Students At?

I’ve worked a lot with schools wanting to motivate students, and we have largely focused on the “how.” In this work, I have named the conditions necessary for students to be motivated. My list includes student voice and choice, higher order thinking, inviting schools, learning by doing, and real world connections.

But wouldn’t it also be helpful to think in some productive way about how motivated students are?

Thinking of kids as simply being motivated or not is not all that helpful. In my work, I’ve often asked that students be thought of as “easy to teach” or “hard to teach,” and although this framework is helpful for certain conversations with educators, this isn’t really the same construct as how motivated or engaged students are.

My friends at the Great Schools Partnership have defined engagement in their iWalkThrough tool as the percent of students that are on task during the classroom observation. Again, although perhaps a useful operationalization of “engagement” for a walk through protocol, I’m not sure this is really the same construct as student motivation and engagement…

But I think I have finally found that useful, practical way of thinking about how motivated students are. I recently learned of Phil Schlechty’s five patterns of engagement, described here:

Authentic Engagement. The student associates the task with a result or product that has meaning and value for the student, such as reading a book on a topic of personal interest or to get information needed to solve a problem the student is actively trying to solve.

Ritual Engagement. The task has little inherent or direct value to the student, but the student associates it with outcomes or results that do have value, as when a student reads a book in order to pass a test.

Passive Compliance. The task is done to avoid negative consequences, although the student sees little meaning or value in the tasks themselves.

Retreatism. The student is disengaged from the tasks and does not attempt to comply with the demands of the task, but does not try to disrupt the work or substitute other activities for it.

Rebellion. The student refuses to do the task, tries to disrupt the work, or attempts to substitute other tasks to which he or she is committed in lieu of those assigned by the teacher.

These certainly aren’t the kinds of classifications that a visitor could observe on a walk through, but I believe any teacher could place each of their own students into these categories.

Here are a couple of things I really like about having this framework:

It differentiates students’ levels of motivation well beyond “he’s motivated or he’s not.”
It provides a framework for educators discussing how motivated their students are.
These might even be interpreted as levels and a thoughtful educator mighty work to move students from one level to the next.
It helps teachers differentiate their strategies for motivating students (moving them to a “higher” level) based on what category the student falls in.
It helps answer the question of why we (educators) might still have work to do, even when students do well on tests or are getting good grades (they could still be in the Ritual Engagement or Passive Compliant categories).

How might this framework enhance and extend your conversations with educators about student motivation?

What’s to Blame for Kids Not Learning?

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know I believe all students can learn. You know I think there are “easy to teach” students and “hard to teach” students, but I think they all can learn. So what is it that gets in the way of students learning?

When I ask teachers that question, they often generate a list like this one:

Attitude
Lack of home support
Learning disability
Learning styles
Substance abuse
Apathy
Defiance
Low aspirations
Lack of sleep
Lazy
Peer pressure
How the teacher teaches
Lack of preparation
Normal distractions

There is no doubt that home and social factors have an enormous impact on achievement. Many students come to school facing problems that cannot be fixed by anything that teachers might do. We could point to a long list of factors such as psychological problems, emotional problems, poor study habits, low self-esteem, withdrawal, aggression, social isolation, conflicts at home, over-expectations of parents, under-expectations of parents, physical or medical causes, social/class differences and expectations, conflicts with teachers, lack of academic readiness and preparation, learning disabilities, poor home life, unsupportive parents, previous traumatic experience, poverty, and low self-confidence.

When you look at lists like these, it is easy to understand why educators might fall into the trap of blaming others for why some students aren’t learning.

But we need to be careful of blame as this poem (author unknown) points out:

Different Levels of Blaming Each Other for What has Happened…

The college professor who said such wrong in the student is a shame,
Lack of preparation in high school is to blame.
Said the high school teacher good heavens that boy is a fool,
The fault of course is with the middle school.
The middle school teachers said from such stupidity may I be spared,
They sent him up to me so unprepared.
The primary teacher said the kindergarten blockheads all,
They call it preparation, why it’s worse than none at all.
The kindergarten teacher said, such lack of training never did I see,
What kind of mother must that woman be.
The mother said poor helpless child–he’s not to blame,
His father’s folks are all the same.
Said the father at the end of the line,
I doubt the rascal is even mine!

Blaming, however, does not help us address the issue of helping every child learn. I am reminded of the old saying, “Do you want to fix blame, or do you want to fix problems?” Perhaps another familiar saying is appropriate here:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
The strength to change the things I can, and
The wisdom to know the difference.

While it is easy to identify all those factors that contribute to a child not succeeding in school, it is much more important that we identify the ones we do and do not have significant control over. For example, we can’t control if students are sleepy unless we let them sleep in class, and we can’t control anything that happens away of school unless we adopt them (and supervise them closely!). And there is no way to control what has happened to them in the past.

So what can we control? What factors can we change? Where is the opportunity for us to impact learning, especially with students facing lots of challenges?

And the only answer is: What we do in the classroom. Instruction.

Classroom practice, how we teach and how we interact with students, is one of the few factors impacting achievement over which teachers have direct control. A few premises of this blog are that school practice does play a role in both underachievement and achievement, and that changing instruction to better meet the needs of hard to teach students can both help reverse negative achievement patterns and counter-act the negative conditions over which we have no control.

And maybe that’s the best reason for a teacher to focus on engaging students in meaningful learning: to gain a little more control…

What Makes for Good Learning Experiences?

The more we try to to help build the talents of every student and help every learner succeed in school, the more we have to be deliberate about creating good learning experiences in our classrooms. I have certainly added to the conversation about what I believe gives students good learning experiences.

The roots of those ideas are not just my own experiences as a learner and a teacher, and not just conducting research and reviewing research, but from actually asking people about their own good learning experiences. The Good Learning Experiences Activity is one of the ways I have explored different people’s perspectives on how they think they learn well.

“Think of a good learning experience,” the script for the activity begins. “It can be in school, or out of school. It can be when your grandfather taught you how to cast a fly rod, or when your teacher worked with you to write that really good essay. But think of a time when you had an ‘aha!’ or something finally made sense, or you could finally do something. Think of a good learning experience.”

I give small groups of participants a few minutes to share their stories. Next, I ask them to jot down on scratch paper what it was that made it a good learning experience. What were the characteristics of the experience? After a few more minutes to share their lists with their neighbors, we compile a class list on chart paper, an overhead, or on a projected computer.

Before reading on, just take a second to think about a good learning experience of your own, and what it was that made that a good learning experience.

I have conducted the activity with people of nearly every age group: upper elementary students, middle school students, high school students, college students, teachers, and parents. Only a few learners state that they can’t think of any good learning experience. Many of the learners state that their best learning experiences have taken place outside of school. No one has ever said that their best learning experience came from a terrific lecture, or an interesting textbook, or an engaging worksheet (although I believe each of these can be a useful teaching tool when applied wisely).

Having conducted this activity with so many groups, I am intrigued by the results. I was surprised to find that, regardless of the group involved, there were common elements with other groups’ lists. Since 1992, I informally tracked the results and found that certain characteristics of good learning experiences come up in nearly every list:

The work was well connected to other ideas and to the real world
The content of the learning experience was personally relevant, interesting, useful, or meaningful to the learner
The learner had choices, shared authority, control, and responsibility
The learning was hands-on and experiential
The learner learned from and taught others
The learner had the support of a patient, supportive, and nurturing mentor
The learning was individualized and although there were standards for the work, the learner could meet them in his or her own way
There was a positive aesthetic component to the experience: it was fun or left the learner feeling good
The experience helped the learner understand him or herself
The learner had success and accomplishment with challenging work

Now, these are my words synthesizing the lists I have collected over the two decades I’ve been doing this activity. Certainly elementary students aren’t going to use these word exactly. But doesn’t this list reflect what made your own good learning experience good?

Much can be learned by investigating how students believe they learn well. What better source for finding out what motivates students to learn than themselves?

But with knowledge comes responsibility. If you know what makes for good learning experiences, don’t you now have an obligation to insure that you model these in our own teaching? – Or at least start learning how to do these in the classroom?

(Note: I have been with educators who have used the prompt “think of a good experience” or “think of a good school experience”, and it never gets to the right information about when people learn well. If you are considering doing this activity with your own students or teachers or parents, I highly recommend that you stick with the prompt “think of a good learning experience.”)

We Had It All Backwards: The Two Types of Instruction

When I told my Curriculum Director, Shelly, about my thinking about there being two types of instruction (Instruction for Lower Level Thinking and Instruction for Higher Order Thinking), she seemed to think the idea made a lot of sense to her, especially in the context of our work around Customized Learning.

She agreed that given how curriculum is organized within Customized Learning, we couldn’t continue to emphasize lower level thinking.

And we got talking about how, since all our middle and high school students had laptops, probably the low level learning, the recall and simple application, was something that students could largely do on their own (with guidance, and coaching).

And then Shelly said, you know, we’ve had it all backwards…

She told me about when she was a high school science teacher, she did a cell unit with students. She used to spend about two weeks of direct instruction to insure that students knew all the parts of a cell. Then she would turn students loose to do an analogy project, where they would write about how a cell and it’s parts were like something else (maybe a football team, or a corporation) and its parts. Students largely worked on this project on their own.

And we reflected on the irony that we (teachers) would spend so much time on something students could probably do on their own (looking up background information). And we did so little direct teaching on something that students probably needed more modeling and assistance with, the higher order thinking.

And we reflected on how teachers should really do a unit, like the cell unit, the other way around. Turn kids loose to learn about the parts of a cell, then do a bunch of instruction and scaffolding on how to make a good analogy (or what ever kind of complex reasoning we’re asking students to apply).

Other places do it that way. Carpe Diem is a 6-12 public school in Arizona that allocates its teaching resources directed at the higher order thinking more than the lower level thinking. Students use online curriculum, supervised by educational technicians, to learn the basics within a unit. Then students spend a large block of time each day, working directly with certified teachers, doing projects and other activities that require higher order thinking (nontrivial application, complex reasoning, and creating) with the content and skills from the unit. Watch this video about Carpe Diem’s approach.

What impact would it have on your students, if we turned them loose to use technology to learn the basic information in a unit, and then we spent quality time with them, both instructing students in how to do complex reasoning, and in applying complex reasoning to the content?

Thinking of Instruction as Two Types

When our pilot teachers were visiting a school that is a little further along than we are at implementing Customized Learning, a colleague and I got talking about how we (us and our colleagues) had a lot of work to do on instruction if we were going to be successful with our implementation.

Then it hit us that a lot of teachers would say they already do a pretty good job with instruction and would object to being told that we had a lot of work to do on it.

And then I realized that both perspectives were right. We just weren’t talking about the same kind of instruction in each instance.

There are two kinds of instruction.

There is Instruction for Lower Order Thinking and Instruction for Higher Order Thinking.

So, it doesn’t matter if you use Bloom’s Taxonomy, New Bloom’s, Marzano’s Taxonomy, or Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, Instruction for Lower Level Thinking is focused on recall and simple application, and Instruction for Higher Order Thinking is focused on nontrivial application, complex reasoning, and creating.

Our teachers are really pretty good at Instruction for Lower Order Thinking. But we have a lot of work to do on Instruction for Higher Order Thinking.

The distinction, thinking of instruction as two types, doesn’t just help clarify our thinking.

This distinction would actually help us in a couple different ways.

We now could say, “You guys are really good at Instruction for Lower Level Thinking. But now, to do Customized Learning well, we need to help you get better at Instruction for Higher Level Thinking.” The message about getting better at instruction would have always been about support, but could have been taken as criticism of their abilities. Now, we can differentiate between validating their abilities, and identifying a need, and offering support to address that need.

And it helps us think about when should teachers apply each type of instruction.

And it will help teachers think about how the two kinds of instruction are different and which strategies support which type.

And it helps us think about leveraging what kinds of interventions to support teachers.

What would thinking of instruction as two types mean to you and the work you are doing in your school?

School is Boring

School is boring.

We all know it.

Kids know it.

Parents know it, but don’t want to think about it.

We teachers know it, too, but defend it. In some small way, I think we don’t want to think that the subject(s) we love could possibly be boring! But we do go on to say things like: It’s preparation for life after school. We all have to do things in life that we don’t want to do. Or, I wish students would start taking responsibility for their own learning. Or, it is the students’ job to learn.

My problem with putting the onus on students is that we are all quick to forget that kids are not in school by choice. They are in school by law. Ironically, it is we, the educators, who are in school by choice. In fact, we are getting paid to help kids learn. In fact, we are the only ones getting paid – if learning were the children’s job, wouldn’t they get paid, too? To me this all shifts the moral responsibility.

And we are quick to forget that kids are kids. And that being a kid when you are a kid is appropriate. It is what you are supposed to be!

And we are the adults.

And we spend WAY too much time trying every possible crazy thing so solve the problem, EXCEPT trying to engage students. It’s enough to make you tired!

I think teachers defend school being boring because we fear we will be blamed.

But I don’t blame teachers.

(Well, if you lecture through an 80 minute block, perhaps you should be blamed…)

Edwards Demming, the father of Total Quality Management, says that 95% of our problems come from structures, not people. And Roger Schank actually makes the argument that it is school being boring that is to blame for kids not learning more, not teachers! In response to Tom Friedman’s blaming teachers, Schank writes:

So one more time for Tom: the problem is that school is boring and irrelevant and all the kids know it. They know they will never need algebra, or trigonometry. They know they will never need to balance chemical equations and they know they won’t need random historical myths promoted by the school system. When all this stuff was mandated in 1892 it was for a different time and a different kind of student.

I’m not denying that it’s hard, or that teachers get frustrated when we are trying what we think we can and not getting any further than we do. Why wouldn’t we feel like we were treading water as fast as we can?! And maybe that even makes it (a little) understandable when we blame kids for not learning.

But, the the solution to ALL this is teachers doing more to engage students.

Not be because it is our fault.

Because it is what we have control over.

And if we want teachers to engage students, then we sure better support the heck out of teachers!

And even though its true, we can’t simply say to teachers, you just have to focus on these five things: inviting schools, higher order thinking, learning by doing, real world connections, and student voice and choice.

We need to get teachers training. And into classrooms with teachers who do a good job engaging students. And we all better remove the barriers that are keeping us from creating the conditions that students find engaging (even if it means changing our curriculum, or how we schedule students, or how we group and regroup students, or how we connect with the community and the potential classrooms outside the building).

And the good news is that when kids aren’t bored, they don’t only learn more (making teachers/us look good), they behave better (making teachers/us happier!).

We need to get beyond the (irrelevant) question of who is to blame, or the (senseless) debate of whether we should or not, and just do it! Just work to engage students!

Engaging students is a win-win! It’s good for kids and it’s good for teachers. Just do it!

How will you help make school less boring?

What If Sitting In Class Were As Much Fun As Days Off!

I participate in conversations on the Association for Middle Level Education’s MiddleTalk listserve. Recently, we’ve had a series of interesting conversations around each of the 9 points in the Forbes article, “Nine Dangerous Things You Were Taught In School.”

Number 8 is “Days off are more fun than sitting in class.”

I caught myself thinking this one might be true…

Most of you reading this know, my own professional work has focused, for a long time, on motivating students. I constantly wonder how many of our problems would we solved if we just put more energy into how to engage students and how to make learning meaningful to them: attendance; behavior; being on task; distractions like technology and social media; achievement; and on and on.

Now in all fairness, I don’t blame teachers for this lack of focus on engagement and student motivation. I think few of us grew up in schools focused on motivation and engagement, and few of us went through teacher preparation programs that emphasized (let alone modeled!) a focus on engagement and motivation. And you can’t do what you don’t know.

That said, I do think now is the time to start building that focus. It seems clear, when I think about the the challenges schools face, like the day-to-day issues listed above. And it seems clear as competition for students is increasing (public schools, private schools, charter schools, online schools, political pressure for school choice, etc.). And it seems clear as I think about the shift from Industrial Age education, with its focus on developing the talents of the few and the compliance of the many, to Information Age education, with its need to develop the talents in all.

But, if we’re going to ask teachers to do what they have not experienced, then we need to support the heck out of them. And not with information. Information doesn’t change practice, teachers need experiences! Send them to schools and classrooms that are doing a great job of motivating students. And share stories and videos of such classrooms. Structure workshops and courses and committee meetings (any school function focused on the adults needing to learn) so that they model the conditions that motivate learners.

And then, maybe, if we do focus on engagement and motivation, being in class would be more fun than a day off…

Mexican Food Schools

I remember being in high school, and frustrated with school, and thinking, “I can do this better than it’s being done to me!”

I think that thought alone is the main reason I became a teacher.

But it is also the reason I worked on what I called “the Making Algebra Meaningful Project” (Surprisingly not an oxymoron! But it took me a long time to come to that conclusion…). And it was why I started looking at teaching and learning with technology, became a technology integrator, and later a partner in the first statewide learning with laptop initiative. And it was why I did my graduate research on motivating underachievers.

Keep in mind that when I started teaching, I didn’t really know how to teach any way other than “how it was done to me,” but it was my motivation to explore how to reach more learners.

For about five years, I had the opportunity to work with a great group that focused on creating schools designed to motivate students (well, still focuses, I just work in Auburn now). Among other projects, we helped the School District of Philadelphia write and support a Magnet School grant, and we created a successful nontraditional school that combines online curriculum with project-based learning and graduated students at a high rate. And they helped me create Projects4ME, the statewide virtual project-based program for at-risk and dropout youth in Maine, that got me connected to Auburn in the first place.

We were/are big believers in multiple pathways to graduation, and that educators will only be successful raising graduation rates and decreasing dropout rates when districts offer students several different approaches to learning, so they can choose the one that works for them.

When we would talk to a superintendent about creating a school for them, we liked to say, “No one really cares if you like Chinese food and I like Mexican food and we go to different restaurants. But we tend to only have Chinese food schools and say there is something wrong with me for being a Mexican food learner.”

We were trying to make those Mexican food schools.

Now I’m in Auburn, where we’re working hard not just to make Mexican food schools for students, but Mexican food programs inside of schools, and lots of other “flavors,” as well.

What are you doing to make sure your students’ diverse tastes in how they learn well are being addressed?

It’s a Matter of Using the Right Prompt: The Words of Gary Stager

This week, both Gary Stager and I were featured speakers at the Association for Independent Maryland and DC Schools’ (AIMS) technology conference.

Gary is an old friend and colleague, who has a long history of working with 1to1 learning with laptop schools (including the very first, in Australia) and with other schools interested in leveraging technology for learning and in constructivist learning. He clearly loves children and everything he advocates for schools is based on creating better experiences (especially learning experiences) for children. He is provocative and takes on a lot of populist education ideas with a very common sense approach. He always leaves his audience thinking.

What follows are some of the ideas and quotes Gary shared in his sessions at the AIMS conference.

The secret to engaging students is using the right prompts. A good prompt is worth a 1000 words – a good prompt, challenge, problem, or motivation; appropriate materials; sufficient time; supportive culture (including expertise) – kids can do works that is beyond them. Good prompts require a really different educational environment, one that values the kinds of things that Reggio Amelia values.
Gary has several articles on effective PBL on his “virtual handout.” (among other great resources)
We have to think less about teaching how to do computers, or about working at someone else’s pace. We need to stop teaching secretarial skills. We need good prompts. We need to teach students to use the computer to create what they want to create.
Alan Kay – the computer is simply an instrument whose music is ideas.
Gary’s only rule when he is working with students – you have to be doing something.
Teacher as “Ringmaster”
“Students will do it for themselves, when it matters to them, but not when it is arbitrary or coercive” – Gary Stager
Less us, more them
Gary likes it when schools/classrooms focus their work with children by asking the question, “What are the 5 big ideas of your grade level or course?”
Some of Gary’s recipe for being successful with students: Being sensitive to the passions, talents, and styles of kids. Being receptive to the learning differences of kids. If you are doing active learning activities, then you can get to know kids.
The best decisions about education are made closest to the child.
What if we simply reduced it all to waking up every morning and asking, “How do we make this the best 7 hours possible for these children?”
The biggest problem we have in school is we don’t get to know the kids and everything is taught disconnected from everything else. That’s followed by not trying to make things interesting for students, not finding out what is of interest or a passion to the students, not having resources, not letting students do things.
Gary on why teachers need lots of PD that puts them in different learning environments as learners: People can’t choose from what they haven’t experienced

Are Parents Leaving Their Good Kids at Home? Easy to Teach and Hard to Teach

I’ve worked with teachers, who refer to their students as “quick learners” and “slow learners,” or “bright students” and “dumb students.” Other teachers approach me sounding as if they believe that kids either have motivation or they don’t, and that teachers can’t do anything about that. And some teachers act as if parents are keeping their good kids at home!

But this isn’t the right way to think about our underachieving students. It certainly isn’t borne out by research. In Insult to Intelligence, Frank Smith (1986, p. 18) explains:

We underrate our brains and our intelligence. Formal education has become such a complicated, self-conscious and over-regulated activity that learning is widely regarded as something difficult that the brain would rather not do…. But reluctance to learn cannot be attributed to the brain. Learning is the brain’s primary function, its constant concern, and we become restless and frustrated if there is no learning to be done. We’re all capable of huge and unsuspected learning accomplishments without effort.

And these students are certainly intelligent (in fact, sometimes you wish they weren’t so darned clever!).

It is important to remember that when we say a student won’t learn, what we really mean is that he won’t learn what we want him to!

All students learn well when they are learning what they are interested in or see as valuable – even if that only seems to happen outside of school. The challenge, of course, is motivating students to learn the content that we see as important and valuable to them – or perhaps it is more accurate to say the challenge is to create the conditions so students will be self motivated to learn what we want them to…

So, I’ve moved away from thinking of students as quick or slow, or bright or dumb, but rather as “easy to teach” and “hard to teach.” Not only do I feel that these terms are more accurate, but they aren’t disrespectful to our underachievers, who bristle at being called slow or dumb. Students I’ve spoken with don’t mind the labels easy to teach and hard to teach. They know how they are in the classroom.

But there is no doubt that some students learn almost regardless of what we do (of course! – by definition, they are easy to teach!), and other students challenge us, no matter what we try. But maybe we’ll get current with helping all students achieve if we have more productive terminology for referring to our students.

References

Smith, F. (1986). Insult to Intelligence: The Bureaucratic Invasion of Our Classrooms. Heinemann.

Harassment & Engagement – Social Media Study Group

Note: This is one in a series of blog posts to be used by Auburn’s Social Media Design Team to conduct a study group before making recommendations for social media policy. If unfamiliar with this series, you might find reading this post helpful.

Core Issues Study Questions (Bullying & Boredom)

What are Auburn schools current doing related to bullying and school climate?
What are Auburn schools current doing related to fostering student engagement in academics?
What is considered best practice around bullying?
What is considered best practice around engaging students?

Although intended as a tool for Auburn’s Social Media Design Team, everyone is invited to use these posts as a resource. And if you are not a member of Auburn’s Social Media Design Team, you are welcome to post comments, too. But please limit/be thoughtful of the sharing of opinion and stay focused on the focus questions – we a trying to use these posts for fact-finding, identifying resources, identifying best practice, etc. Thanks!

18 Reasons We Need More Psychology (And Less Logic) In Our Education Thinking

Few systems are as complex as education.

I’ve been thinking a lot about education lately, I’m in the school change business, especially as it relates to creating schools that work for all children. Over the last years, my work has focused on designing schools that work for all students, programs for hard to teach students, and on technology-rich learning environments, especially 1to1 learning with laptop and ipad initiatives (these all usually overlap considerably when each is done well). And I especially wonder how it is that competent educators (good people) make decisions and policies that seem to not work very well.

From my perspective, a decision or policy works if it supports the working of the system. You can tell if it doesn’t work if the system is still upset or in some level of tourmoil.

I’m not sure I can explain this like I want to, but I guess I should say here that when I say “system,” I don’t mean the “education system” or “school system” (the policies that govern a district, school, classroom or other jurisdiction), but rather the system of learning. By my definition, if kids generally do their work, follow the rules, learn, and are engaged, then the system “works.” If kids are breaking rules, not learning, refusing to do their work, then the system doesn’t work. If a school has a high breakage rate on devices or they go missing, the the system isn’t working. When breakage and missing rates are negligible, then the system works.

So why do seemingly good policies not work?

I’ve come to the conclusion that problem lies with logic.

Good people use logic to make decisions. But education is a complex system based on people, not things. Therefore, we need to use psychology, not logic. By definition, logic makes sense in systems that focus on things or stuff. But it is psychology that makes sense in people systems.

So, from two decades of working with schools, including my own, around customized learning, or student motivation, or technology-rich learning environments, or leadership for school change (or, more often, all of these combined!), I’ve started to discern some of the “Logic vs. Psychology” problems schools have. In each case, the “logical” solution is certainly logical, but seems to have perpetuated (or even exasperated) the kinds of disruption or disequilibrium that the solution was trying to solve (it “didn’t work”), whereas the “psychological” solution seems to have had the desired effect.

So here are 18 reasons we should use more psychology and less logic:

Logic says 1to1 is a technology initiative. Psychology says it is a learning initiative.
Logic says students should learn (it is for their own good). Psychology says we must ask ourselves why students would want to learn.
Logic says do workshops on how to use the various software on the laptops. Psychology says do workshops on how the software can be used to help students learn academic content.
Logic says that a teacher must cover content. Psychology says that a teacher must connect with students personally.
Logic says schools should ban disruptive technology (cell phones, mp3 players, blogs, chat, social networks, etc.). Psychology says if a tool is part of the child’s culture, then we should find academic uses for it.
Logic says filter the Internet heavily. Psychology says filter some, but mostly educate students.
Logic says use technology to do what teachers have always done, but more effectively. Psychology says use technology in new ways to engage students and help them learn.
Logic says supplying the tools is enough. Psychology says apply some positive pressure and support to get teachers to use the technology effectively for academic purposes.
Logic says breakage and theft is about the technology and the kids. Psychology says breakage and theft is about how the technology is being used for academics and the leadership around the technology initiative.
Logic says tech folks need to protect the stuff. Psychology says tech folks need to enable engagement and the learning.
Logic says a school is doing well if the easy to teach students are doing well. Psychology says that a school is doing well if the hard to teach students are doing well.
Logic says give students information. Psychology says help students make meaning of information.
Logic asks, did the teacher cover the material? Psychology asks, did the students learn it?
Logic says that technology is a separate line item. Psychology says that all the expenses related to technology are integrated throughout the budget (infrastructure, instruction, staff, etc.).
Logic asks, how smart are you? Psychology asks, how are you smart?
Logic says teachers should speak to students with authority. Psychology says teachers should speak to students as people.
Logic says a teacher can select which teaching styles they choose to employ. Psychology says that there are high-impact and low-impact pedagogies, and teachers should choose wisely.
Logic says pass out laptops to teachers as soon as the school gets them. Psychology says pass out the laptops at an inservice where school leaders can set the tone on how they will be used in the classroom.

Let’s try to use a little less logic and a little more psychology.

What Students and Teachers Say About Voice and Choice

The students and teachers in my Underachievers Study (2001) all had things to say about student voice and choice.

All students in the Underachievers Study felt they learned better when they had choices about how they learned. The teachers interviewed agreed. Mrs. Libby and Mrs. Edwards both believe that choice is a way to spark student interest or to engage students. Students reported that they sometimes had free choice about what book to read or could select from several books. Occasionally students could choose between two class activities, such as when Mrs. Libby allowed her language arts class to decide to either watch a video or work on creating a paper quilt. The students also said they could sometimes choose who to work with or were involved in setting due dates and scheduling tests, and sometime even in deciding how to assess a unit or project. Mrs. Jacques summed student choice up this way:

Choices? A lot of times I let them choose where they can sit, who they want to work with, what kind of learning environment they want to have in here. You see some of the stuff around the room, the different ways that they can report out. Sometimes they use overheads, sometimes they use charts, sometimes they use different things. I let them choose the kind of projects that they do.

In our interview, Mrs. Edwards and I described these kinds of choices as “the teacher making a skeleton and the students putting the skin on it.”

Mr. Mack believes that getting student input is the key to reaching reluctant learners:

Ask them if we are doing a certain unit, why they don’t like it? What type of things do they like? If it’s notes and discussions and a paper and pencil test at the end, they might not like that unit. Is there another way we can take the same information for them, that might be that they still take the notes but they do a model or a demonstration at the end. If they need to do the hands-on piece. I think that if you make it fun, exciting, they get into it without realizing that they are getting into it. And they’re starting to learn and they’re with you. And then at the end you ask them, “What did we do?” and they say, “We did this, this, and this,” and they were with you all the way along. But the student input helps me make it that way.

Choices and input were important components of project work for Ben, Doris, and Cathy. Doris said she wanted to do class projects and assignments her own way. Cathy wanted input into the kinds of work she does; she doesn’t mind parameters, but doesn’t want to be told exactly what to do. Ben thinks he learns best when he is doing hands-on activities that students have more control over. Cathy notes, however, that most of the time, teachers lay out all the work to be done by students and students aren’t given many choices. Ben and Doris agreed. Doris finds it boring when all the work is laid out to be done. Ben doesn’t see how he is given many choices in school and points out that he would like to have at least one course where he could learn what he wanted to:

Okay. I’d like to have a class where you get to learn what you want to learn. And it would be pretty much divided up [by interest group]… We have something like that only it’s an activity at the end of the day, called [activity period], that we only have on some days. I think there should be a class that is just, you choose what you’re going to learn. You have a little list of choices and you just choose.

Mrs. Jacques was explicit that students don’t get to choose what to learn, “As far as choosing the curriculum, you know, what they want to learn, that’s kind of set. So, they don’t really have much choice in that.” Seventh graders who participated in the Aspirations survey agree. The data show that only about half the students felt that they got the chance to explore topics that they found interesting (51%) or had opportunities to decide what they wanted to learn (44%).

Reference

Muir, M. (2001). What engages underachieving middle school students in learning? Middle School Journal, 33(2), pp. 37-43.

An Extrinsic Motivator So Good It Should Be Your Secret Weapon

You’ve been reading through a series of my posts highlighting, mostly, counterproductive extrinsic motivators.

You must be wondering, though, are all extrinsic motivators bad? The kind of motivators Alfie Kohn describes (bribery rewards) do have a negative impact on learning, but are there other kinds of extrinsic rewards (besides random rewards) that will positively effect learning?

The answer is, Yes!

It is choice that can help make extrinsic rewards almost as powerful as intrinsic motivation, that force that drives us to do what we’re interested in. Choice makes the difference. The fancy term is “autonomous supportive strategies” and comes from self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991). Proponents of self-determination theory maintain that integrated regulation is as effective for achieving optimum learning as intrinsic motivation.

Student Voice and Choice can be achieved through a variety of strategies. Teachers can allow students to share in the decision-making and authority within the classroom. They may negotiate the curriculum with the teacher, or help the teacher decide how they will learn the curriculum. Teachers might involve students in planning the entire unit or simply give students a choice of doing one of three assignments. Project-based learning, for example, allows students numerous choices around what form their finished product will take, while learning valuable content determined by the teacher, district, or state. The key is to make sure students have choices about their learning.

Keep in mind that giving students choices does not mean “let them do what they want.” We don’t ask toddlers, “What do you want for dinner?” But we might say, “Do you want peas or carrots with dinner?”

The same is true of students. We would never think to ask them “what do you want to learn?” But we might say, “We’re starting a unit on the Great Depression today and we’re all going to read a novel about the depression. But let me tell you about these three outstanding books so you can choose which one you want to read…” We might progressively structure more and more choice for students so that they can take on more and more of their own learning. But that would only come with careful scaffolding, just as we might give our own children more and more choices about what they eat, and as they develop the ability to make healthy choices, eventually get to the point where we do ask our teenager what she would like to eat for dinner.

This is why Student Voice and Choice is one of the 6 Focus Strategies of Meaningful Engaged Learning and why it is one of the critical components ofProficiency-Based Learning. It is so powerful that teachers should use it was their secret weapon in working to motivate students and help them be successful.

References:

Deci, E. L., and R. M. Ryan. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum.

Deci, E., Vallerand, R., Pelletier, L., & Ryan, R. (1991). Motivation and education: The self-determination perspective. Educational psychologist, 26(3 & 4), 325-346.

Some Students Need More Than Direct Instruction

An old friend provided me with a wonderful opportunity. She’s the Middle Level Director for a city in the South. I’ve been doing workshops for her schools and teachers for about 14 years. A couple summers ago, I worked with the teachers at two schools that have high populations of at-risk and hard to teach students. I introduced the teachers to several strategies for reaching these students. The following winter, I returned to the district and got to spend a day at each of the schools. I was able to conduct classroom observations and focus groups at the schools.

Surprisingly (at least it was an “aha” for me!), I didn’t see out of control classrooms or bad teaching. What I did see was order and a lot of competent (and in some cases outstanding) direct instruction.

Even so, I often only saw about half of each class “engaged” (showing signs of being on task) and, in conversations and focus groups, teachers indicated that many students don’t care, won’t do the work or study, and there isn’t much support from home.

One teacher called this “lazy disease.”

But maybe it wasn’t just laziness or home support. Maybe, for some kids, how we teach doesn’t work for them. Any parent with more than one child knows that they learn in different ways. Why do we expect our students to all learn the same way?

This helped me realize that some students need more than direct instruction.

The teachers also unknowingly provided me with the answer to the question, “When do you know that you need to do more than direct instruction?” The answer: “When the students don’t care, won’t do the work or study, and there isn’t much support from home. When they have hard to teach students.” Simple, right?

I think that maybe direct instruction isn’t enough for these students because it focuses more on the content than on how students might learn it. We are often quick to get frustrated with hard to teach students exactly because we covered the material and they didn’t learn it.

And yet shipping companies, such as UPS, would never think to say that they “delivered” a package if a customer did not receive it. It might be accurate to say they left the package on the porch, but it isn’t “delivered” until the resident actually gets the package. Dewey puts it a little differently:

Teaching may be compared to selling commodities. No one can sell unless someone buys. We should ridicule a merchant who said that he had sold a great many goods although no one had bought any. But perhaps there are teachers who think they have done a good day’s teaching irrespective of what people have learned. There is the same exact equation between teaching and learning that there is between selling and buying. (Dewey, 1933, p. 35-36)

Underserved populations, including underachieving students from all learning styles, career aspirations, cultures, and socioeconomic levels deserve a quality education.

It is not surprising that improved instruction, which involves students in meaningful, engaged learning, is viewed as a remedy to the growing concern over the high social and economic cost of large numbers of disengaged and at-risk youth. Identifying practices which help these diverse populations learn well is a step toward creating an educational system intent on serving all students. Finding out what motivates our underachieving and hard to teach students will help inform and equip teachers in the struggle to lead all students to academic achievement.

References

Dewey, J. (1933). How we think. Chicago: Henry Regnery.