Thoughtful Classroom Observation

        In this keynote address at the National SAM Conference last month, consultant/author Mike Rutherford proposed the following logic model: (a) skillful teaching is the most important variable in students’ school learning; (b) teaching becomes more skillful with feedback and practice; and (c) observation can be a key factor in feedback. Rutherford suggests eleven principles for getting the most out of classroom visits: 

• Practice intellectual humility. There’s a lot that observers don’t know and see when they walk into a classroom: what happened just beforehand, the mood of certain students, where in a curriculum unit they are, what’s in the back of the teacher’s mind, and much more. It’s a myth, says Rutherford, that supervisors can achieve “inter-rater reliability” by watching and scoring classroom videos. 
• Have a language about instruction. The more observers know about good teaching, the more conceptual hooks they have to help them notice, appreciate, and understand what’s going on. Rutherford tells the story of a high-school principal he worked with as an AP who was brilliant at spotting where trouble was about to break out in a basketball crowd. That came from years of “pattern recognition” in countless home games. 
• Develop positive expectancy. Rutherford advises giving yourself a pep talk before entering a classroom so you focus on what the teacher might do that’s effective. This is to counter any less-than-positive expectations you might have based on previous visits – or perhaps your mood at that moment. 
• Stay on your feet. When observers are seated, their field of vision is limited and there’s a tendency to write feverishly rather than watching and listening. Moving around a classroom, the observer can look over students’ shoulders, look at their work, ask them questions, read what’s on the walls, and get different perspectives on the teachers’ actions. 
• Don’t worry about interrupting. “You’ve already done that,” says Rutherford; no matter how unobtrusive, an adult walking into a classroom will be noticed by the teacher and students, affecting them in ways large and small. (The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle describes the effect of an instrument of measurement on what’s being measured.) The only question is whether the feedback given to the teacher will be valuable enough to “pay them back” for the interruption.
• Enter as a visitor, not an owner. A classroom is a teacher’s “home,” their sacred ground; it’s where they spend more waking hours than almost anywhere else. Above all, Rutherford advises, avoid hanging out near the teacher’s desk – that’s their personal zone. And for heaven’s sake, don’t sit in their chair! 
• Maintain focus and intensity. Every 20 seconds, says Rutherford, teachers check out what the visitor is doing. They want to see someone who is engrossed, attentive, upbeat. • Delay zeroing in on details. The first priority walking in is to get the big picture, take in the climate, the overall tone of the room. 
• Alternate between zooming in and zooming out. Spend five minutes observing the big picture, then focus intently on a particular student, a piece of student work, an anchor chart, what’s on the board, or some other detail for five minutes, then spend the rest of the time observing more generally. That should be the shape of a 15-minute visit. 
• Look ahead of and behind the action. For example, what are students doing just before the teacher arrives at their group? What do they do after the teacher has talked to them and moved on
• Practice shorter, more-frequent observations. These mini-observations don’t need to be evaluative; they’re geared to getting a sense of everyday practice and following up with focused coaching conversations. They are likely to have much more impact on teaching and learning than traditional evaluations, which, says Rutherford, have “a very low effect size.”  

“Developing Sharper Vision for Classroom Observations” by Mike Rutherford, a keynote address at the National SAM Innovation Project Conference, January 28, 2022; Rutherford can be reached at mike@rutherfordlg.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #922 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Let's Solve Our Educational Problems Together

            Many of us have wondered why the Mt. Abraham Unified School District (MAUSD) would be considering closing elementary schools, and why MAUSD would support consolidating middle and high schools with Addison Northwest (the Vergennes area) and becoming one large uber-district. After all, the financial worries plaguing the MAUSD are the result of declining student enrollment and a state education funding system that was designed when student enrollment in Vermont was stable. Closing (or even threatening to close) town elementary schools; and consolidating (or even threatening to consolidate) middle and high schools with another district, will only make the enrollment decline worse. We are already hearing this concern from local real-estate agents. Why would young families move to our five towns without assurance that town schools will remain open and vibrant, and school bus rides will remain relatively short? 

            If declining student enrollment is part of the cause of the problem, let’s take steps to attract more families to our region. It seems to us that the solution consists of three key parts: 

• Increase the availability of jobs. Supporting the universal broadband efforts now underway across Addison County is one way to help here. Not only will affordable, universal high-speed internet enable many current and future residents to work from home, but it will promote economic development across our towns, creating more jobs and making it much easier for residents to find information that leads to gainful employment. For more information, please visit the Maple Broadband website. 
• Increase the availability of reasonably priced housing. The recent Population and Housing Report from the Addison County Regional Planning Commission suggests some solutions, including repurposing existing housing stock (Repurpose existing housing stock, not schools!). Our local and regional planning commissions have already been doing some great work on this issue. They need our questions and ideas, and they deserve our support in considering steps that will increase housing availability, especially for young families just starting out. There are a number of steps that towns can take, and a number of resource people and organizations that would help our towns with this part of the solution. 
• Increase the availability of early childcare. The scarcity of quality care for very young children is a huge obstacle to employment that discourages young families from settling in our rural towns. There must be ways to increase access to early childcare - including by locating it some of the extra space we currently have in our schools. 

            Wouldn’t it be a more productive and harmonious use of our time and resources to work together on these steps toward solutions, rather than just treating the symptom of the problem with measures (closing schools and further consolidating school governance) that would have so many negative effects on our students and our communities? Imagine MAUSD Board members, the MAUSD administration, and community members from across our five towns, intentionally collaborating to keep our schools open, vibrant, thriving and cost effective. With that kind of effort there’s nothing we couldn’t accomplish. While we’re at it, let’s also collaborate in calling on the Vermont Legislature to make needed changes to the state’s system for funding public schools, so Vermont’s rural communities won’t have to suburbanize our school systems in order to be able to afford them. 

 By Nancy Cornell on behalf of the Starksboro SOS (Save Our Schools) Committee

Please note: This editorial appeared in the December 23, 2021 edition of The Addison Independent.

What Are the Results When Elementary Teachers Specialize?

          In this Annenberg Institute paper, NaYoung Hwang and Brian Kisida (University of Missouri) report on their study of the impact of elementary schools having teachers focus on fewer subjects – for example, one teaches math and science while another teaches ELA and social studies. While the majority of U.S. elementary students learn in self-contained classes, with the homeroom teacher covering all major subjects, a growing number of schools are using a semi-departmentalized structure, with teachers specializing in one or more subjects and working with two or more homerooms. The percent of schools using this model has increased from 5 percent in the mid-1990s to 20 percent by the early 2000s. 

          Over the years, advocates have advanced a number of arguments for elementary specialization:

• Although highly effective teachers in one subject are usually effective in others, there is variation; teachers are more proficient in some subjects than others. 
• This suggests that getting teachers working in their best subject will have a positive effect on student achievement. 
• When teachers specialize, they can more easily hone their skills. 
• Training and PD are streamlined and less time-consuming. 
• Teaching the same lesson two or more times a day improves performance. 
• Having fewer preps reduces teachers’ workload and stress and increases job satisfaction. 

Despite these appealing advantages, specialization has some downsides: 

• Teachers are responsible for at least twice as many students, making it more difficult to know each students’ strengths and weaknesses, needs, and special circumstances. 
• It’s more challenging for students to build trusting relationships with teachers and develop a sense of belonging in the school. 
• That’s concerning since research consistently shows that relationships play an important part in student success, especially in the early grades and for vulnerable students.
• For parents, having to deal with several teachers makes it more challenging to communicate about their children’s development and learning. 

 Hwang and Kisida say these pros and cons of elementary specialization haven’t been adequately researched, despite more than a century of debate. However, two recent studies – one in Houston, the other in North Carolina – cast doubt on the practice, documenting negative effects on student achievement. 

          Hwang and Kisida followed up on those studies by looking at statewide data on fourth and fifth grade teachers in Indiana public schools from 2011 to 2017. The researchers were able to compare data on the same teachers in years when they taught self-contained classes and years when they specialized in one or two areas. The data linked 591,311 students to 15,895 math teachers and 17,101 reading teachers. Here are the conclusions. 

• Teachers performed less well when they specialized than when they taught self-contained classes.
• Students with specialized teachers performed less well in reading and math than students with self-contained homeroom teachers. 
• This was especially true with low-achieving students, English language learners, students with special needs, and those eligible for free and reduced-price meals. 
• Schools implementing specialization saw no improvements in student achievement, attendance, or disciplinary infractions. 
• The researchers found that teachers who specialized tended to be less qualified by Indiana standards and often had a prior track record of lower impact on student achievement. 
• However, the researchers don’t believe this was the reason specialized teachers did less well; that’s because in the North Carolina study, specialized teachers more often had higher effectiveness ratings. 

What explains the negative findings on specialized elementary classrooms? Hwang and Kisida believe it’s because “specialization weakens student-teacher relationships.” They were able to test this hypothesis by looking at schools where students looped with specialist teachers – had the same combination of teachers two years in a row. In these classes, the negative effect of specialization on math achievement was significant lower. These data, say the authors, “show that finding strategies to increase student-teacher familiarity with specialists may improve their effectiveness.” There’s also the option of not specializing. 

 “Spread Too Thin: The Effects of Teacher Specialization on Student Achievement” by NaYoung Hwang and Brian Kisida, Annenberg Institute, October 2021; the authors can be reached at nhwang@missouri.edu and kisidab@missouri.edu.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #915 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Coaching Teachers Who Are Perfectionists

In this three-part series in Education Week, coaching guru Elena Aguilar suggests ways to work with a teacher who is never, ever satisfied with what they do, or what their students do. “At the heart of perfectionism,” says Aguilar, “is a belief that, in order to be loved and accepted, we must strive to act and be the best all the time. Our very worth as a human being is tied to our perfection.” Some tendencies: 

• Getting upset when things aren’t just right; 
• Having uncompromising rules; 
• Blaming oneself or others for things that aren’t under their control; 
• Thinking in black-and-white terms; 
• Quickly discounting positive news; 
• Holding rigidly high, unrealistic standards; 
• Saying should a lot; 
• Claiming not to be a perfectionist. 

Because things aren’t ever perfect, perfectionists often see themselves as failures. They’re especially vulnerable to criticism, blame, feelings of inadequacy, and shame. Perfectionism is all tied up with self-worth, and may go back to childhood experiences. It’s a “dysfunctional emotional tendency,” says Aguilar, “… associated with increased stress, physical health problems, mental-health issues, and a high risk of burnout.” 

Perfectionism should not be confused with a strong work ethic and a commitment to excellence, says Aguilar. “You can have tremendous energy, conscientiousness, and persistence and not be a perfectionist. Perfectionism is about seeking external validation, whereas healthy striving is all about internal drive. A healthy striver has high expectations and commits to a task while also making mistakes and knowing that those mistakes don’t indicate a personal flaw. A perfectionist’s sense of self-worth is overly tied to external praise and accomplishments.” 

 A coach working with a perfectionist teacher needs to draw on specific tools and approaches. Aguilar suggests these eleven: 

• Facilitate, don’t direct. The coach needs to help them discover their internal power. “You cannot fix a perfectionist teacher,” she says. “They have to take care of themselves.” 
• Coach toward emotional awareness. This is true for all coachees, but is especially important for perfectionists, who need help putting their emotions into words. 
• Help them find indicators of success. The teacher probably has a long list of unattainable goals for the class, project, unit, or school year. “Attainable, realistic goals help a perfectionist feel successful,” says Aguilar. 
• Be cautious with praise. “A perfectionist won’t actually feel any better from it and may feel unsatisfied with your coaching,” says Aguilar, “or feel that your praise wasn’t enough, or wasn’t authentic, or wasn’t the right kind of praise.” What works is specific, genuine appreciation in bite-size chunks. 
• Help identify strengths. “The perfectionist needs to hone their ability to see their own skills and to praise themselves,” says Aguilar. Debriefing a lesson, a coach might ask the teacher to identify three things that went well and persist if the teacher waves off the compliments. 
• Normalize struggle and imperfection. A light touch is helpful here, reminding the teacher that it’s normal to mess up sometimes and mistakes are a learning opportunity. 
• Coach around what the teacher can control. Help the teacher focus on areas where they have the most impact and steer them away from areas where they have no influence. 
• Coach away from stark generalizations. “Help your client see the nuances, gray zones, and complexity of every situation,” advises Aguilar. “Guide them to unpack ‘total failure’ so that they can see the 1 percent of the lesson that was neutral, or even strong.” 
• Cultivate self-compassion. Possible questions: Would you talk to your best friend/ sibling/child/student the way you talk to yourself? What would it take for you to treat yourself the way you treat those you love the most in the world? 
• Teach relaxation strategies. “Perfectionists are anxious and live with a lot of fear,” says Aguilar. “Mindfulness is an invaluable tool in this area.” 
• Suggest a mantra. “Perfectionists need to rewire their brain,” she says. “They’ve spent decades, most likely, telling themselves they aren’t doing a good enough job.” They need to learn a new language, and a phrase or sentence that helps them accept partial perfection can be very helpful. 

Aguilar describes working with a perfectionist teacher named Katie and suddenly realizing that her own emotional responses – frustration, impatience, anger – were adding to a “wall” between them and preventing the teacher from trusting and listening. “I was firmly attached to how I thought she should change and what she should do and when,” says Aguilar, “and when I didn’t see the kind of evidence I wanted to see, I felt frustrated. Impatient. I wasn’t a very good coach at that point… because what I value most in a coach is that the coaching emerges from a place of deep compassion and curiosity… I had to acknowledge my own fears, anger, sadness, and insecurities first – and engage with those and understand them – before I could be the kind of coach I wanted to be, and that Katie needed me to be.” 

Patience, she says, is what was needed – not resignation or passivity, but being open to Katie’s realities. Aguilar took this lesson into all her other coaching. “Slowing down helps me tremendously to recognize what I’m feeling,” she says. “Now, when fear or anger surface during a coaching session, I acknowledge them and ask them to sit on the side while I’m working and I promise them we’ll have a chat later. And then, once I’m in a place where I can reflect, I say, ‘Hello, my little fearful coach-self. What happened in that session that triggered your insecurities?’ And then I dig and uncover sometimes a new insight or sometimes the same old stuff.” 

With Katie, there was a moment when Aguilar had deep empathy for how difficult it was for this teacher to always think she was a terrible teacher. “Katie,” she said, “I can hear how much you’re suffering, and my heart aches. I wish I could take it all away because I know how badly you want to teach and how much you want to meet the needs of your kids.” Katie sensed her kindness and compassion and sighed deeply, and they had a profound connection. “And she talked,” says Aguilar. “And I listened. The wall crumbled.” 

 “How to Coach the Perfectionist Teacher: Understanding Perfectionism Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3” by Elena Aguilar in Education Week, February 27, 28, and March 5, 2019; Aguilar can be reached at elena@brightmorningteam.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #910 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Is Elementary Literacy Coaching Worth It?

In this article in The Reading Teacher, Jacy Ippolito (Salem State University), Allison Swan Dagen (West Virginia University), and Rita Bean (University of Pittsburgh) say the role of elementary literacy coaches “remains underspecified, variable, and often misunderstood.” They believe that now, as schools emerge from the disruptions of the pandemic, is a good time to examine how coaching has been implemented and take a critical look at its impact on teaching and learning. 

Studies have generally supported the efficacy of this job-imbedded form of professional development, but there are caveats. Ippolito, Dagen, and Bean report on the research in several key areas and list their “wonderings” with each: 

• Scale – Coaching seems to have the most positive impact on teaching and learning when implemented in a manageable number of schools, with coaches able to maintain authentic relationships with teachers. When coaching is scaled up, impact diminishes. Questions: 

    - What is the optimal number of teachers, classrooms, and schools for a coach? 

    - Can virtual coaching increase the number of teachers coaches partner with and avoid sacrificing impact? 

    - What systems and structures do districts need to maximize coaches’ impact? 

 • Coach-teacher relationships – These matter a great deal, and the research consensus seems to be that coaches and teachers should “co-construct” knowledge and expertise in a relatively egalitarian partnership. Questions: 

    - Does online coaching detract from teacher-coach relationships? 

    - How do coaches’ relationships with principals affect impact? 

    - How do reading specialists, literacy directors, and coaches interact most productively? 

• Roles and responsibilities – Instructional coaching is an informal leadership position that’s relatively new in schools, and it’s been used in a variety of ways: focusing on teachers, students, and assessment data; providing individual support and leveraging systemic change; and over the last 18 months, providing training on new technology tools, supporting the social and emotional needs of teachers and students, and engaging in equity and social justice work. Questions: 

    - Will additional responsibilities dilute the effectiveness of literacy coaches or enhance their impact through a new synergy? 

    - Will technology, SEL, and equity work remain with literacy coaches or be handed off to specialists?

    - Who in schools is best positioned to lead equity and social justice work? 

• How coaches spend their time – Studies have found that when they work directly with teachers – conferring, modeling, observing, co-teaching, analyzing assessment data – coaches have the greatest impact. There’s also great value in working with teacher teams as they look at student work, engage with curriculum content, view classroom videos, and rehearse high-leverage teaching practices. Questions: 

    - How does a school’s culture influence the work coaches do with individual teachers and teacher teams? 

     - How important is the coach’s understanding of the change process for individuals and systems? 

    - What preparation and inservice support do coaches need to become systems thinkers, thought leaders, and change agents? 

• Virtual coaching – During the pandemic, coaches had to shift to supporting teachers online, observing virtual lessons, reviewing digital tools, and helping colleagues master Google Classroom, Pear Deck, and other online platforms, often conferring after school hours. Questions: 

    - Is virtual coaching as effective as in-person work? 

    - What new and unanticipated challenges come with online coaching? 

    - Which online coaching practices will continue and which will be discarded as schools resume in-person instruction?

     - Can teachers be persuaded to make their teaching more public by sharing it virtually with coaches and peers? 

• Coaching done by other educators – Some districts have used reading specialists, assistant principals, generic instructional coaches, outside consultants, and university personnel to do literacy coaching. In lean budget times, coaches may be laid off, depriving teachers of the support they’d been receiving. Questions: 

    - Should districts train reading/literacy specialists and informal teacher leaders in key skills so they can take on coaching? 

    - Will that help develop teacher leaders who can collaborate with their peers and build a sense of collective efficacy? 

    - What research is needed on various coaching roles and the common elements of successful coaching? 

• Preparation for literacy support – An International Literacy Association 2017 standards document clarified the distinction between literacy specialists (focused primarily on students), literacy coaches (working mostly with teachers), and literacy coordinators/directors (spending most of their time on systems). It also broadened the scope of literacy work to reading, writing, language, and communication and spelled out the skills and knowledge needed for each role. Questions remain about university and state education department training and certification: 

    - How are the 2017 standards influencing training programs for coaches, including in the post-pandemic world? 

     - Which districts and other entities are providing the best training and ongoing professional learning, and what are they doing? 

    - Do we need a streamlined national coach endorsement and certification process? 

Is coaching worth it, given the expense? ask Ippolito, Dagen, and Bean. Yes, but… they say: “Perhaps more now than ever, elementary schools need the pedagogical, content, and facilitative expertise of literacy coaches in order to lead schoolwide literacy efforts effectively. Coaches are well positioned to advise principals on the strength and direction of the school’s literacy program. They can support teachers during times of rapid changes in teaching modalities. Coaches are perfect sounding boards for teachers wondering how to provide students with authentic literacy learning experiences while also shoring up foundational word recognition and language comprehension skills.” 

 The “but…” is important, conclude the authors. “To be successful, coaches need regular consultations with and support from principals; clear role descriptions that guide their work; schedules that allow for ample time with teachers in large and small groups as well as one-on-one; and ongoing professional learning and coaching colleagues (near or far) with whom to collaborate. Coaching programs are only as successful as the degree to which they are supported. The myth of the hero coach working single-handedly to shift teaching and learning in a school is just that – a myth… Remember also, coaching is only one part of each school’s vision for literacy teaching, learning, and continual improvement.” 

 “Elementary Literacy Coaching in 2021: What We Know and What We Wonder” by Jacy Ippolito, Allison Swan Dagen, and Rita Bean in The Reading Teacher, September/October 2021 (Vol. 75, #2, pp. 179-187); the authors can be reached at jippolito@salemstate.edu, Allison.Swan@mail.wvu.edu, and ritabean@pitt.edu.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #909 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Giving Feedback That Isn't Consigned to the Bottom of the Backpack

In this Tang Institute article, Bowman Dickson and Andy Housiaux describe every teacher’s least-favorite scenario: after spending hours reading students’ papers, correcting errors, and writing comments, students glance briefly at the grade, compare what they got with a few classmates, and continue to make the same mistakes on the next assignment. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” say Dickson and Housiaux, and provide a synthesis of the academic research on feedback that actually works. 

They start with Grant Wiggins’s definition: Feedback is information about how we are doing that guides our efforts to reach a goal. “It can come from others, oneself, or even the task itself,” say Dickson and Housiaux. “It aims to improve subsequent efforts and not just correct work that has already been done.” They give several examples of feedback containing evaluation, advice, and praise, each followed by teacher feedback that’s far more likely to improve students’ work: 

• Ineffective: B+ You still need to master exponent rules. 
• Better: You are confusing the two main exponent rules – when multiplying two bases you need to add the exponent, not multiply. Practice a few of these types of problems for the next homework assignment. 
• Ineffective: Make sure your main idea paragraph relates to your topic. 
• Better: Your first sentence is about therapy dogs, but the rest of your paragraph talks about what dogs eat and where dogs sleep. Look at the examples of effective writing on your handout and then rewrite the paragraph. 
• Ineffective: Wow! Your lab report is really nicely done. 
• Better: You explained your results with good scientific nuance, your methods section is appropriately detailed, and your data presentation is just as polished as the sample lab reports.

 “Feedback that is delivered effectively,” say Dickson and Housiaux, “will advance student learning in ways that even the most well-intentioned evaluation, advice, and praise simply cannot.” They boil down the research on effective feedback to four big ideas: 

• Big idea #1: Students must engage with feedback in order to learn from it. “Feedback should cause thinking,” says British assessment guru Dylan Wiliam. “Feedback should be more work for the recipient than the donor.” This means reserving classroom time for students to process the teacher’s comments (often posed as questions or hints) and engage with a brief follow-up task – which might be correcting an error or writing about what they learned from the comments, what they did well, and what they will do differently next time. Students need to learn how to be “feedback seekers,” looking for it, taking it in, and following up. 
• Big idea #2: Relationships matter. Establishing trust is an essential precursor; then the teacher can be a “warm demander,” setting high expectations and conveying feedback with growth-mindset language that speaks to students’ work, not their identity. Without a trusting relationship, teachers’ power position, along with their gender, race, or other characteristics, can trigger stereotype threat in students. “Don’t withhold criticism or overpraise mediocre work,” say Dickson and Housiaux. And create a classroom culture in which mistakes are seen as an important part of learning. 
• Big idea #3: Focus on specific instructional goals. “If students do not understand where they are aiming, they will not be able to make sense of the feedback they receive on their performance,” say Dickson and Housiaux. That’s why it’s vital to be transparent about learning outcomes and assessment criteria, and provide exemplars of student work at different levels of proficiency. The teacher’s goal is to build skills and habits of mind that will help students think differently and get better. “Feedback should change the way students think and engage with future material,” say the authors, “instead of just fixing mistakes on past work.” To that end, less is more; feedback should target only a few key areas. 
• Big idea #4: Separate feedback from grading. Giving grades is a requirement in almost all schools, but teachers should be under no illusions that grades improve performance. The challenge is getting students less focused on grades and more on continuous improvement. “Teachers can encourage students to focus more on the feedback they receive by spending time explaining the difference between feedback and grades,” say Dickson and Housiaux, “and then showing the ways in which students can improve by attending carefully to the teacher’s feedback.” Teachers also need to nudge students toward autonomy and independence, providing opportunities for and instruction in self-assessment and peer feedback versus constant dependence on teachers. 

At the end of their paper, Dickson and Housiaux include six case studies showing how these big ideas play out in classrooms – a student demanding to know why a classmate got a better grade; students not improving despite copious written feedback on their work; a teacher’s comment taken the wrong way by a student; a student not doing homework and failing to ask for help. Each case is followed by focusing questions on what might change a frustrating situation. 

 “Feedback in Practice: Research for Teachers” by Bowman Dickson and Andy Housiaux, Tang Institute at Andover, August 2021; Housiaux can be reached at ahousiaux@andover.edu.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #907 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

How School Librarians Can Maximize Their Impact in Unsettled Times

        In this article in Knowledge Quest, Kristin Fontichiaro (University of Michigan) and Wendy Steadman Stephens (Jacksonville State University) suggest 40 ways that school librarians can maximize learning in a time of uncertainty. A selection: 

• Realize your leadership potential – what Ewan McIntosh describes as “agile, whole-school interdisciplinary work that is needed to create the exceptional learning experience our young people deserve.”
• Define success by the impact you make, not by how busy you are, leaning into the influential, urgent, critical tasks in your building role. 
• Replenish your “surge capacity” by carving out time to connect with others, exercising, practicing hobbies, and living your faith. 
• Retool your website so it works for students who are learning remotely. 
• “Go spelunking” into a database to find advanced features, tuning into webinars, and updating assignments with new tools. 
• Reconsider punitive overdue policies – for example, letting items auto-renew, permitting students to renew on their own, and ending fines. 
• Adapt online lessons for offline students, partnering with special educators to keep lessons accessible for students with learning differences. 
• Do a diversity audit of your collection and adapt selection criteria to reflect the richness of a global society and a multicultural community. 
• Remember that parents are watching, with some ready to pounce on cultural differences between home and school; anticipate these conflicts and mediate a new level of family involvement in the curriculum. 
• Consider taking on the role of supporting families as they master virtual connections with the school. 
• Tune in to school board and public library meetings. 
• Teach students how to explore multiple perspectives on the news, including Freedom Forum’s collection of front pages. 
• Curate e-books available to students at home, creating “bookshelves” of hand-picked titles.
• Explore how you will address widespread misinformation and disinformation – for example, by using Rand Corporation’s Media Literacy Standards to Counter Truth Decay.
• Explore and share Google Scholar, a powerful search tool to find scholarly papers. 
• Evaluate your media diet and that of your school with tools like Ad Fontes Media and AllSides.
• Build in some time for students to wonder, using digital resources like livecams or remote locales, Google Arts and Culture, and digitized museum collections. 
• Do one thing you’ve put off. “You’ll feel relief and accomplishment,” say Fontichiaro and Steadman. 

 “Pushing Forward While Treading Water” by Kristin Fontichiaro and Wendy Steadman Stephens in Knowledge Quest, September/October 2021 (Vol. 50, #1, pp. 42-48); the authors can be reached at font@umich.edu and wstephens@jsu.edu.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #905 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.