Light vs. Heavy Coaching

What makes someone better at something?   Is it staying complacent, comfortable and repeating the same things over and over?    No.   When you question what you do, reflect, and feel uncomfortable you will move forward.   I was reading a blog about moving forward every day, (see that blog here) and it made me reflect on my coaching practice.
Our district is very lucky to have the support of coaches from the Learning Forward group.   This group creates the standards for coaching and reflective practices.   One thing that we learn about is heavy vs. light coaching.
There are many roles that you can have as a coach.   Everything from finding new tools, to providing reflective feedback with teachers.   You can watch a video on the hats that I wear as a coach in Decatur Public Schools.  If you are a light coach, you will do tasks like looking for resources, and modeling lessons.  These things can help to support teachers but there is typically not a lot of deep conversation and reflection.   If you are coaching heavy you are more likely to be co-teaching and observing lessons, followed by some deeper questions.   This type of coaching really pushes teachers to reflect on their practice and make some deep changes that can really change the way a classroom looks.

Heavy coaching can be hard but rewarding.

As I sit and reflect on MY coaching practice, I want to move toward being more of a heavy coach.   When I look at myself I know that I typically shy away from conflict and really do want to make the people around me happy.   This is something I am working on both personally and professionally.   In my professional life, this trait pushes me more toward light coaching.  That is not going to help my schools reflect and move forward.   It makes me uncomfortable to make this push and this change, but I know that being uncomfortable is the first step in making change.   As a change agent, this is my responsibility.
So I ask you, do you coach heavy or light?   if you are a teacher do you reflect on your practice?  If you are an administrator are you happy with the status quo or do you push for excellence?  Join me in my push for change, and excellence!

Hidden Key To Successful 1:1

Our Brand New Eisenhower High School

The past month and a half I have been working on getting started on my new position in my school district.   One of our high schools, Eisenhower High School, has just opened a brand new building as of January 22.    The students are excited, the staff is rejuvenated, and the entire community is excited.   If that isn't enough, we are also going 1:1 with MacBook Airs this coming August.   Because of all of these changes the district decided that they needed an Instructional Technology Coach full time at this new high school.   How could I not apply for this position??  New beautiful building, a secondary environment, AND 1:1 with Airs!  The past year, however, the amazing team of Instructional Technology Coaches (see their blogs here here and here)  (see their Twitter accounts here here here here here here , District Leaders, and the IT department have been working together to figure how to roll this 1:1 out the best we can.  I have been reflecting a lot these past few weeks on what makes a 1:1 program successful.   I have blogged a lot about professional development, and the role of leadership.   This week I have been thinking and seeing how important the IT department is in this roll out.   Without IT support and the appropriate infrastructure 1:1 will not work.

Students working in Google Drive in a Classroom

We are INCREDIBLY luck in Decatur Public Schools.   Our IT department is on board with the 1:1 vision and works ridiculously hard to support the instruction.   The journey to where we are right now has been long.   To get here we have researched, visited district where 1:1 is working, and had many meetings to discuss what we have learned and see.   The IT department has participated in every moment.   From Visiting Minnetonka in Minnesota, to South Berwyn just outside of Chicago, the IT department has seen why 1:1 is important for instruction, and what the districts need to support this instruction.  When we meet to talk about how we will roll out IT understand what good instruction should look like and they work really hard to make the technology allow what we need.  We purchased more bandwidth, installed more routers, and changed the way our wireless filter works so that students as staff are both safe and can access the tools we need.   They are amazing!
If your district is looking to go 1:1 be sure you both have at IT department to support the amount of devices, and include them in every step along the way.   Imagine buying 500 ipads, but none can connect to wifi.   Or you have enough wifi, but your filter will not allow YouTube, and websites students need for research.  Or worse yet, a filter that will allow students to go anywhere, even sites that are not safe or in line with CIPA.
So to sum up, there is a lot to think of before going 1:1.  All stakeholders need to be involved in the decision from Teachers, Leaders, Professional Development, and IT.   If your district is considering this, be sure to speak to your IT department and make them a priority moving forward.  

Expect the Dip

Keep using the technology even when it's hard.

A new year is starting and many teachers are creating goals around incorporating technology into the classroom.  Enthusiasm is high as are expectations, and then the kids arrive!  I see many teachers loosing that enthusiasm, and even backing off of their endeavors with technology.  Don't give up!
There are many things that happen at school that make teachers feel tempted to stop using technology.  Unexpected hiccups occur; the wifi crashes, apps don't sync.  All of these things are definitely events that could make one stop and put away the tech.  Don't let that be the reason you stop your technology mission!  The wifi will go back up, you will figure out how to sync your apps have no fear!
Any time you try something new there is a natural dip in skill.  Think about when you get a new car.  It takes a few times to remember that the cruise control is in a different spot, or the gas is on the other side.  After a few times you get the hang of it and remember.  The same is true for integrating something new in your teaching practice.  Tech or not there is a learning curve with a new strategies.  Give yourself time to breathe, and reflect.  Have your coach or another teacher sit in to observe.  Chances are you are being harder on yourself than you need to be.
I was in a class with a teacher integrating iPads.  This was the third time I was there and the students have been using these iPads frequently.  I saw the lesson going well with students working together to navigate and learn how to use this new app in instruction.  The teacher saw a classroom loosing control.  When students take more control of their learning it is not strange for teachers to feel out of control and that can be scary!  This is normal, take a deep breath, and press on.
Anything worth doing is hard.  Change is super hard but good things come from
change.  Find the people around you to support you and stay the course!

Day 3 with the Gen 1 Project

Using skitch to annotate over images

Today was the third day working with a middle school science teacher at one of my buildings.
Quick background:  This teacher and I had been working and working on getting more technology to her building or classroom.  Our hard work paid off with a cart of 20 Gen. 1 iPads this year.  The plan is to integrate technology into the science curriculum via Google Drive, Edmodo, and a few Apps.  Day 1 we learned about Google Drive.  (Click here to learn more about what Google Drive is)  Day 2 we learned how to use iPads, and set up user names and passwords.
So back to day 3, it was awesome!  Every day that we work with the technology gets better and better.  Today we learned how to use Skitch which can be a finicky app.  The students really worked together, helped each other out and were able to get the job done.  I was super pleased with today.

Use Edmodo to share links and
assign tasks!

The teacher, although excited to be working with the technology, found it very stressful.  We talked about this.  Integrating tech is a HUGE job!  Many say they feel like a first year teacher all over again.  She and I spoke about how this is a huge change and change can mask itself as feeling out of control.  In her words, "the change is coming", it's scary, but we're in this together!  I'm so proud of where we are going, where we've come from, and where we are at!

Use Google Drive to create presentations
and store documents

Today we gave the students a google form to find out what they thought, and what they were thinking about this Gen 1 Project so far.  I'm excited to reflect on the feedback with the teacher and keep moving forward!

To learn more about the Gen 1 Project please follow the teacher's blog and follow her on Twitter!

BYOSS: Cool way to Facilitate PD

Not only do we get ideas, we get free snacks!

A few months ago I went to a conference in Chicago put on by SDE.  This conference's focus was differentiation.   There were a lot of cool things that I picked up on but one thing that i brought back was an idea for professional development from a session hosted by Rick Wormlei.  He spoke on an interesting way to lead professional development called BYOSS.
BYOSS stands for Bring Your Own Skill and Snack.  The goal of this professional development session is to have teachers bring ideas on how to use a tool, or implement a strategy, the skill.  And of course teachers love a yummy treat after school so that's why the snack.
If you are leading a BYOSS first you need to select a idea.  Its a good idea to think of something that people could share a variety of ways to use or implement this idea.   I chose to have my session on Promethean Responders as all K-8 classrooms in my district has a set.  Teachers that choose to attend are to bring a copy of a way they use the idea, responders, in their classroom for every attendee.  So 15 participants, 15 copies.  I chose to have teachers bring 10 copies as a standard.  Then of course, they must also bring a small snack to share.  Entry into the session is both the copies and the snack.
Once everyone is there, collect their 'skills' and everyone has there snack its time to get started!
Distribute the ideas to all of the participants.  I like to pass them out one at time so that the teachers can focus on them one at a time.  The teacher who brought the idea shares it with the group.  Then, as a group we brainstorm at least one way to modify or adapt the activity.  We do this for each idea.  The great thing about this session is 1.) you get to eat yummy snacks and 2.) you get to leave with a TON of ways to use an idea or incoporate a strategy.

# of teachers x 2 = tons of great ideas! 

When I tried this out at my schools is was super successful.  In addition to getting a lot of ideas, it allows teachers to reach out to each other and find experts in their own building.   Its definitely a style of professional development that I plan to try again.  I challenge you to try this at your school.  

My PD with #edchat

After my post of professional development I decided to it my money where my mouth was.  I participated in a chat on twitter.  I knew of the twitter chat labeled #edchat.  When I saw it pop up on my twitter feed I went for it!  I went to the search tab and typed in "#edchat". Edchat are various conversations set up around different questions. Today's conversation was about the role of Direct Instruction and lecture in the classroom. 

It was awesome.  I read others' perspectives, comments when I had a thought or opinion on a tweet and people responded to me.  It really got the wheels turning, validation on some of my opinions, and I even found some people to follow.   I strongly recommend you to try out an edchat too. They are at noon and 7pm daily.  See you on the next edchat!