The Internal Black Box

This is a blog on data but not the data that we know as educators.

Last week I heard of a tragic plane crash in Eastern Europe and of course the first thing that was reported was that the airplane's black box was found. The black box is that device that captures all the data from the airplane as it flies, providing the investigators with information as to what may have precipitated the accident.

That got me thinking. What kind of "black box full of data" are we creating? If we look at our life today and we had an internal "black box" to investigate, what would that black box say about our life? If we knew that our thoughts, moods, feelings, actions were being "recorded" would our internal "black box" be changed? If we could access our "black box" to look at past data, would that make a difference to how we live the rest of our lives?

Perhaps it is time for us to act as if we did have an "internal black box" that measured ourselves. Or do we have one already and we call it conscience?

Lessons From China

I heard Yong Zhao, from the University of Portland, speak at the ATA sponsored Educational Futures Symposium on March 19, 2011. He provided interesting food for thought for this blog. China has launched a comprehensive reform of its education system. They have cut hours for math and increased hours of instruction for physical education, the Arts, and complementary courses.
They are broadening their curriculum, certainly increasing local autonomy (they had been nationally centralized), cutting down the burden of academia on their students and minimizing using test scores as measures of teacher and school evaluation.
In short, they are diversifying the definition of achievement in Zhao's words.The Asian countries are now focusing on Creativity.
It is interesting that while we in North America worry about Mathematics and the teaching of it, China is worried about Physical Education and the Arts. Perhaps it is time for our innovations to meet in the middle somewhere or as Zhao says, Distance is Dead - we are in one world, together

You can learn more about Yong Zhao"s ideas at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNpZ60IJ42o

Coaching is for Everyone

In our school division, our teachers and administrators have started to work on the Instructional Coaching model of professional learning. But it is not only teachers or administrators or central office staff who need and thrive with coaching. In baseball, the American League Most Valuable Player was named and Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers won this prestigious award. Did he state that he was at the top of his game and he had nothing left to learn? In his press conference did he praise himself? Did he feel that his coaches were insulting his professional skills? No. He said his winning the MVP and his being considered a great player by his peers was all about "being coachable and listening and not thinking you know everything. I (Josh Hamilton) want to continue doing this....It is an honour to be coached by them. I will continue to listen." What do you think? Can you apply this analogy to education, to teaching? Or am I off base? I look forward to your thoughts.

What is Student Engagement?

I hear the term "student engagement" all the time now. A few weeks ago I was watching the local Edmonton news and an item came up about a high school just outside of Edmonton and how they were engaging students. I put down my paper and watched and listened for this new work on engagement. On the screen we watched as a school spokesperson spoke rather excitedly about the new way their school was engaging students. They had loaded the students into the gym and brought in a rock band to play a few tunes and then a motivational speaker spent some time with the students. The spokesperson stated that their school was attempting something new to engage students. (although all sitting and gitting seemed rather disengaging but it got me thinking about my teaching career.....)

Ah! memories of 1979 and my role as high school students' union advisor. We brought in a band, had them play some popular tunes (I remember the guitar solo for Free Bird going over well and then students were fed a motivational speech about this being the time of their lives (more on that piece of advice in a later blog). If we have to go back to 1979 to get our ideas on engagement for the 21st century, I do not think we are anywhere near the 21st century. We are still stoking the pot bellied stove with ideas of what we think is engaging for students and clapping together the chalk brushes that contain our lessons while the desks are screwed into the floor.

So what is student engagement? Is it my memories of 1979? Or is it something else, something with less control and less speech making and more listening. I look forward to answers from the future.

The Changing Role of Central Office Staff

    Welcome to my first Blog. As Assistant Superintendent for Wild Rose Public Schools I hope to create a blog that allows for discussion of education topics relevant to teachers, administrators, and others involved in education. When I first started in Central Office 12 years ago, I was asked to work towards changing how professional learning was delivered in Wild Rose Public Schools. Over the past 12 years due to the work of teachers and administrators in Wild Rose and due to the support of Alberta Education and their collaborative partners in developing AISI, there has been a change. Professional Learning is much more school based. So how does that affect my role.
    The National Staff Development Council has recently published seven tasks for which system administrators bear some responsibility.These include 1) Building system capacity; 2) Providing Research and Best Practices; 3)Allocating Resources; 4) Provide coordination among schools in the system; 5) Coordinate Cross-School Collaborative Learning Teams; 6) Monitor School Learning Plans; and 7) Provide Support.
    In Wild Rose we build capacity by providing opportunities for teacher leadership training - AISI; PLP; Alberta Education opportunities; Central Alberta Regional Consortia. We provide opportunities for research and best practice sharing through conferences and symposiums. Resources are used to support our new calendar so that there are positive professional learning opportunities for all. Pilot initiatives are supported for those who wish to participate (SmartLearning; Galileo). We encourage the development of teams to examine policies and practices (Exemplary Teaching). Cross school teams, usually curriculum based, are encouraged and supported. As an ETeam member, I visit schools and meet regularly with school leadership teams to monitor and review schools goals and plans.I see myself as a support to the school, the administrator, the teacher, and the student.
    By collaborating, I hope that the professional learning in Wild Rose will be aligned with Alberta's, the division's and the school's goals and that at the end of the year, we will all have helped in moving forward the learning of our students and ourselves.