Teacher Teamwork That Gets Results

            In this article in The Learning Professional, retired superintendent/author Diane Zimmerman and James Roussin (Generative Learning) say that all too often, teacher teams have difficulty focusing on student work, learning from each other, and taking collective responsibility for student learning. Zimmerman and Roussin’s research indicates that three key elements in PLCs successfully boost student learning: psychological safety, constructive conflict, and actionable learning. 

• Psychological safety – Team members feel that they can take risks, make mistakes, and ask for help. This operates at four levels: 
• Trust in self – I feel safe speaking my personal truths. 
• Trust in relationships – I feel listened to and respected by my teammates. 
• Trust in process – There are norms for taking turns, listening to all voices, and more. 
• Trust in collective learning – Cycles of inquiry explore student successes and challenges and identify the most effective classroom practices. 

“When any of these dimensions breaks down, teams tend to bog down,” say Zimmerman and Roussin. “When teams regularly monitor the four dimensions of trust, they increase their psychological safety, capacity to self-monitor, and self-regulate (and co-regulate) to maintain and repair trust.” 

            One way to establish team norms up front is to ask team members what they don’t like about meetings and flip those into agreements on what collaboration will look like. Going forward, the norms should always be there, and any team member can speak up when there are problems – for example, “Time out. We need to balance voices in the room” or “We seem bogged down. Can someone give a summary of the key points on the floor?” 

• Constructive conflict – Avoiding conflict and always striving for harmony can lead to groupthink, say Zimmerman and Roussin, which won’t improve teaching and learning. There’s going to be conflict; the trick “is staying open, neutral, curious, and interested… seeing disagreements as opportunities to learn.” 
• Key skills include: - Summarizing a disagreement so it can be discussed with less passion;
• Getting more comfortable hearing other perspectives and points of view; 
• Intentionally drawing out differences in how colleagues think and perceive. 

Teammates need to learn to be aware of personal triggers that derail productive discourse. reframing those emotions into a neutral or positive approach to the problem. “I’m feeling anxious,” one person might say, then listen to how others react, and work together to resolve the issue. 

• Actionable learning – To get better results with students, teams need to dive into kids’ learning difficulties, identify skill and knowledge gaps, and collectively identify new teaching strategies that produce better results. Key skills:
• Regularly assessing what’s working and not working with students; 
• Challenging the status quo (for example, a mandated commercial program) and examining assumptions about current practices; 
• The team organizing around more-effective practices. 

Team members need to ask probing questions: What do we know and what don’t we know? Why is this important? What might we do next? If a teacher has learned a successful classroom technique, it needs to be shared – perhaps in a workshop, perhaps by colleagues observing that classroom. 

 “Teacher Teams That Lead to Student Learning” by Diane Zimmerman and James Roussin in The Learning Professional, December 2023 (Vol. 44, #6, pp. 66-70); the authors can be reached at dpzimmer@gmail.com and jim.roussin@gmail.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1018 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Student Self-Talk and Classroom Success

            In this American Journal of Education article, Benjamin Uhrich (University of North Carolina/Charlotte) and seven colleagues say that “self-talk is ubiquitous in human beings and plays a role in virtually all learning functions… [It’s a] free-flowing internal dialogue that guides our behavior and future thoughts, for better or for worse.” 

            The researchers studied college students’ use of self-talk when faced with difficult situations, and its effect on their: 

• School satisfaction – How happy students were with their educational experience; 
• Self-efficacy – Students’ belief they were capable of successfully achieving goals; 
• Academic performance – Success at reasoning, cognitive development, planning, motivation, self-regulation, metacognition, executive function, and grades. 

            Uhrich et al. analyzed 1,092 self-talk responses from 177 undergraduates at a small liberal arts college in the southeastern U.S. Here are some examples: 

• I am thinking I can handle this. 
• I can do this if I keep trying. 
• I am so worried. But I need to focus now. 
• This is not what I was planning on, but oh well, it is what it is. I’ll have to get started studying immediately and make sure to eliminate as many distractions as I can. The key is not to stress out more than is necessary. Just keep calm and let’s take a deep breath and get to it. 
• This class is the worst. I feel like I’m going to die. I’m bored and feel like I’m wasting my time with this class. 
• Oh s---, I’m screwed. This test will ruin my grade in the class and absolutely kill my GPA. Why didn’t I study before today? I always do this to myself. I never should have taken this class. I hate this school. 
• I’m so dumb. 

            What were the results of the study? Uhrich and colleagues found that downbeat self-talk had a negative effect on students’ school satisfaction and self-efficacy, but not on their grades and GPA. As for positive inner speech, the researchers found “consistent and robust relationships between self-talk and academic satisfaction, self-efficacy, and performance.” Students can use constructive self-talk to regulate thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, which will boost school satisfaction, a growth mindset, and grades. 

            The researchers’ conclusion for K-12 as well as college settings: “Self-talk is a unique and influential construct that should be of interest to academics and practitioners across the disciplines of psychology and education… Self-talk is not a mere repackaging of personality traits, nor skills or strategies people use to optimize their performance… Interventions that promote adaptive self-talk in the context of the school setting have the potential to be transformative.” 

 “The Power of Inner Voice: Examining Self-Talk’s Relationship with Academic Outcomes” by Benjamin Uhrich, Sandra Rogelberg, Steven Rogelberg, John Kello, Eleanor Williams, Shahar Gur, Leann Caudill, and Miles Moffit in American Journal of Education, November 2023 (Vol. 130, #1, pp. 31-60); Uhrich can be reached at benjaminuhrich@hotmail.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1017 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Solstice Poem

Solstice Poem

A Ritual to Read to Each Other – by William E Stafford 

If you don’t know the kind of person I am 

and I don’t know the kind of person you are 

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world 

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. 

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, 

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break 

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,

but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider--

lest the parade of our mutual life together get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep:

the signals we give -- yes or no, or maybe -- should be clear:

the darkness around us is deep.

Jon Saphier on High-Expertise Teaching

            In this Kappan article, author/consultant Jon Saphier says many districts have idealistic vision statements like these: 

• Students loving learning; 
• Developing 21st-century skills;
• Capable, responsible citizens. 

But high-flown goals, says Saphier, aren’t helpful for generating actionable plans for improving teaching and learning. 

            Similarly, he believes, education reform efforts have lacked an effective guiding principle, resulting in three decades of lurching from one initiative to another: teacher evaluation, small schools, site-based decision-making, PLCs, active learning, habits of mind, social-emotional learning, project-based learning, cooperative learning, student agency, advisories, digital literacy, and more. Teachers get cynical, wondering what happened to last year’s grand plan, and administrators are often distracted by crises and lose their focus on the initiative of the year. 

            What really matters in schools, says Saphier, is high-expertise teaching. “This is because the overall knowledge and skill of the individual teacher is the most important factor in student achievement. It dwarfs everything else” – and it’s directly tied to closing achievement gaps. That’s why he believes the North Star for every district’s improvement efforts should be: 

            Make every school an engine for continuous improvement of high-expertise teaching for equity. 

This vision statement, Saphier believes, synthesizes 70 years of insights on sustainable improvement in teaching and learning. It “conjures concrete images of what to do to improve the experiences of children and their learning. It comes with anchors in the research base on instructional improvement, deep roots in the literature of healthy organizational culture, and direct ties to the lived experiences of students.” Here’s how he unpacks the vision: 

• Every school – There should be a certain amount of autonomy from school to school within a district, says Saphier, allowing for “individual creativity, different implementation, or idiosyncratic approaches.” But high-quality teaching, clearly defined, is non-negotiable – for example, the way teachers scaffold complex texts to bring grade-level content within reach for all students. Superintendents also need to develop, recruit, hire, and support principals who can sustain teaching quality over time. 
• Engine for continuous improvement – Principals’ number one job is building a culture that supports the kind of teaching that gets results for all students, which means first-rate professional learning, deep collaboration within and across teams, and non-defensive examination of practices through analysis of student learning. Superintendents need to bring principals together in a collective we, promoting collaboration versus competition among schools. 
• High-expertise teaching – This is built on the vast, complex, and often untapped knowledge base about classroom practices that make the biggest difference in student learning and promote equitable outcomes. Teaching really is more complex than brain surgery. 
• Teaching for equity – This is a personal journey for teachers as school and district leaders support them in examining their beliefs and current practices in light of their impact on different students and developing a sense of urgency in changing historical patterns of achievement. 
• Professional working conditions – The infrastructure of teachers’ daily lives – team meetings, collegiality, student scheduling, professional development, hiring and onboarding, supervision, evaluation, coaching, and support – is often ragged, says Saphier: “If we don’t address this problem, no other reform movement has a prayer of accomplishing its goals.” The school district leadership is key to addressing this challenge, ideally supported by a higher education partner.
• Getting started – Saphier suggests several steps to move a district toward implementing this ambitious vision: 
• Developing a common definition of high-expertise teaching and identifying the elements that are most important for the district – for example, cultural proficiency, active reading and writing in every class, formative assessments, and robust classroom discussions.
• Focusing on hiring and supporting principals who have a good eye for teaching, are committed to dismantling inequitable structures and practices, and can mobilize teacher teamwork around looking at student work and continuously improving practice. 
• Reducing variance among schools by ensuring strong instructional leadership, professional learning opportunities, time and structures for teacher collaboration, support systems for students, and a relentless focus on equity. 
• District office personnel interacting with school-based educators in ways that move everyone toward this North Star. “If we want schools to have adult cultures of trust and constant learning,” says Saphier, “it must be modeled from the top.” 
• Stay focused on a simple, compelling vision: Make every school a reliable engine for constant learning about high-expertise teaching for equity. Put it on the wall, in the header of every agenda, in back-to-school speeches and year-end summaries. “Make it the North Star of every journey,” says Saphier, “and cancel the trips that can’t connect to this destination. Avoid statements too abstract to indicate action, worthy though they may sound.” 

 “A New North Star” by Jon Saphier in Kappan, December 2023/January 2024 (Vol. 105, #4, pp, 52-56); Saphier can be reached at Saphier@RBTeach.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1016 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Helping Young Adolescents Stay Safe When They're Online

            In this School Library Journal article, Louisiana librarian Amanda Jones (2021 School Librarian of the Year) describes how she raised students’ consciousness about their online activity (social media, YouTube, and gaming systems with Internet connectivity). Although almost all of her middle-school students are under 13, most have social media accounts, some without parental permission, some cleverly working around parental controls. Students confide that their parents don’t know about a lot of the inappropriate and upsetting comments and images they’re seeing online. 

            Jones started the lesson by displaying two prompts: 

• Share something inappropriate you’ve seen online. 
• What are several steps you can take to protect yourself online? 

She asked students to reflect for a moment and then write their responses on sticky notes (without their names). Students put their sticky notes on large posters at the front of the library, and Jones read aloud Nerdy Birdy Tweets, a book by Aaron Reynolds about friendship and oversharing online. 

            She then asked students if using Instagram and Snapchat was dangerous for people their age. Everyone said yes. Students then looked at their sticky notes. Responses to the first prompt included fat shaming, racist comments, kids and adults ganging up on one student and harassing them over and over, an adult asking for their address, people sending pictures that were “bad,” and KYS (kids explained to Jones that this means Kill Yourself). In each of the 27 classes at Jones’s school, some students said they’d received this last message. 

            In response to the second prompt, students showed that, at least collectively, they knew what to do: Tell an adult. Take a break from social media. Block and mute the person. Don’t give out personal information. Never post your picture. “Amazing answers,” says Jones. “But when pressed about whether they always follow their own advice, unsurprisingly, students admitted they do not. Most confessed to giving out personal information, posting pictures, and engaging with people who posted cruel or inappropriate comments instead of muting and blocking.” Why? The desire to save face and seem cool, and perhaps the fear of having their devices taken away by parents. 

            The conversations that followed were “extended, deep, and earnest,” says Jones. “It was almost as if they had been waiting for an adult to ask them these questions. The discussion was honest and difficult – and eye-opening for me and their other teachers. The trauma these kids can face while simply playing a game online or chatting with friends on social media did not escape me. I wonder how this generation will be as adults navigating the Internet. Will some become more empathetic after having faced such toxic behaviors at such a young age, or will they continue the pattern as they grow older?”

            The lesson closed with students writing down their biggest takeaways, and Jones posted them outside the library as an ongoing reminder about responsible digital citizenship. 

 “The Dangers in Their Hands” by Amanda Jones in School Library Journal, December 2023 (Vol. 69, #12, pp. 12-13)

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1015 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Engaging Math Thinking Tasks with a Low Floor and High Ceiling

            In his book, Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Peter Liljedahl advocates having students work on challenging, highly engaging tasks in mixed-achievement groups of two (at the primary level) or three (in grades 3 to 12). Each group works collaboratively on a vertical whiteboard, standing up, sharing one marker, with the teacher observing their work and, as described in the summary just above, answering only “keep-thinking” questions. Liljedahl suggests starting with fun problems to establish a collaborative culture, then segueing into the regular curriculum, always posing open-ended tasks that challenge students to put their heads together and think at higher levels. The teacher encourages students to observe and learn from other groups’ work and brings closure at the end of each class. From his book, here are some examples of the types of tasks Liljedahl suggests: 

Lower elementary: 

How many squares are in this image? 

             (Image: 4x4 table of squares)

You have 16 jellybeans and four jars: 

    - Place the jellybeans in the jars so that each jar has either 3 or 6 jellybeans. Are there some things that are not possible? 

    - Place the jellybeans such that each jar has one more than the jar before it. How many ways can you do this? 

    - Place the jellybeans so that each jar has twice as many as the jar before it. Three times as many. The 

Ice Dream ice cream shop has 10 flavors of ice cream. How many different two-scoop ice cream cones can you make? What if there were 11 flavors? What if there were 12 flavors? How about with 20 flavors? What if each cone had at most three scoops? 

A farm has some chickens and some pigs. One day the owner notices that the animals have a total of 22 legs. How many chickens and how many pigs might there be? Can you come up with another solution? And another? Can you come up with all the solutions? How do you know that you have all the solutions? 

Upper elementary and middle school: 

If 6 cats can kill 6 rats in 6 minutes, how many will be needed to kill 100 rats in 50 minutes? 

If I were to write the numbers from 1 to 100, how many times would I use the digit 7? What if I wrote 1 to 1000? How many zeroes? 

Select four numbers from 1 to 9 at random. Using these four numbers and any operations, make the values from 1 to 30. 

How many ways are there to make a dollar using only nickels, dimes, and quarters? 

I have a four-minute egg timer and a seven-minute egg timer – the kind you turn over and let the sand run through. Can I use these to cook a nine-minute egg? If so, how long will someone have to wait for their egg? 

High school: 

Decompose 25 using addition, for example: 25 = 10+15, 25 = 10 + 10 + 5… What is the biggest product you can make if you multiply the addends together? 

You want to arrange four candles on a birthday cake. How many ways can you place the candles such that there are no more than two different distances between two candles? 

 From Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics by Peter Liljedahl (Corwin, 2021)

Recommended Books that Feature Unreliable Narrators

             In this School Library Journal feature, retired librarian Steven Engelfried touts books with the unusual characteristic of deliberately misleading storytelling: 

- The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by M.T. Anderson, illustrated by Eugene Yelchin, grade 4-7 

- The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill, grade 3-7 

- Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow, grade 5 and up 

- The Probability of Everything by Sarah Everett, grade 3-7 

- Invisible by Christina Diaz Gonzalez, grade 4-7 - Ground Zero: A Novel of 9/11 by Alan Gratz, grade 4-7 

- The Worlds We Leave Behind by A.F. Harrold, illustrated by Levi Pinfold, grade 5 and up 

- Scary Stories for Young Foxes by Christian McKay Heidicker, illustrated by Junyi Wu, grade 4 and up 

- Linked by Gordon Korman, grade 4-8 

- The Windeby Puzzle by Lois Lowry, grade 5 and up 

- When Sea Becomes Sky by Gillian McDunn, grade 3-7 

- The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams by Daniel Nayeri, illustrated by Daniel Miyares, grade 4-8 

- The List of Things That Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead, grade 5-8 

 “Telling It Like It Isn’t: Unreliable Narrators Keep Readers on Their Toes” by Steven Engelfried in School Library Journal, November 2023 (Vol. 69, #11, pp. 38-40)

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1013 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.