You should read: No More Telling As Teaching

Direct instruction or lecturing have always played a significant role in classrooms, but is it really the best way to engage students in the content? No More Telling As Teaching does not demonize lecturing like the title may imply. It simply recognizes that lecturing may not be the most effective instructional technique. We are often drawn to lecturing, because it might be the quickest way to cover the myriad of standards that exist in each content area. By the way, I don't like to use the word "cover" when referring to teaching the content. I'm in favor of the less is more philosophy to develop deep understandings for learners. 

We need to consider who is doing the work in the classroom. I would argue that if the teacher is doing most of the work in a classroom, I would bet most of the learners are likely compliant or unengaged. Tovani and Moje ask us to consider these three things when we think about engagement: a learner must know how to behave in a way that is productive to learning, a learner should be connected to the topic emotionally, and a leaner should be intellectually stimulated. The "pedagogy of telling" may not be the best method to achieve behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement.

According to Tovani and Moje (2017) the best way to learn is through a mix of classroom experiences. 

"They should include projects driven by questions or problems, whole and small group discussions, participation in real-world activities that make use of targeted learning skills, the reading and writing of multiple texts, interactions with challenging problems, and yes, just-in-time lectures (the best are usually interactive)" (p.21).  

To me the most important statement in the above mentioned quote is the focus on applying concepts from the content in a real-world environment. I have seen deep levels of engagement when teachers embed opportunities for learners to engage in the world outside of our school. Learners are more engaged in the activity when they know their work will be viewed by those on the outside. Too many times students don't find value in their work, because it is often done in a silo and we fail to make connections to our community and the real-world.

Tovani and Moje provide some questions to ask ourselves when we plan for our learners.

• How can I connect my content to the world outside of school?
• Why should my students care about this? What real problem will they be attempting to solve?
• What will they create? Is it something that exists in the real world? Which disciplines will they be relying on to solve this problem? 
• Who will hear or see their work besides me? 

Content needs context. 

I ran across this on Twitter recently. I think these are some good guidelines for all of us from young children all the way to adult learners. 

Check out No More Telling As Teaching 

Rugby Public School District Learns

I recently shared a blog about changes to our professional learning practices at Rugby Public School District, we had our first professional learning day on August 28th. Teachers, support staff, and administrators spent the morning learning from Donalyn Miller and Valinda Kimmel. Miller has written several books on establishing a reading culture in schools. Kimmel is a literacy consultant that has been helping our school district with early literacy practices. The theme throughout the morning was developing a reading culture from preschool to grade 12.

Staff learned about the power of read alouds, book talks, and different ways to study vocabulary. We often think that reading a book aloud is only good for young children, but the research shows that this is a powerful practice regardless of age. The peak for read alouds often occurs around third or fourth grade. Book talks align with our focus on building classroom libraries and allowing more choice for students over what they read. A Book Talk is a method used to share a book with another person without giving away the whole story. Finally, teachers were able to gain some easy to implement vocabulary activities that can be used across grade levels and subject areas.

We will have three different book studies this year. Our first book discussion was on the book Fundamental Five. Teachers were mixed into different groups and they discussed the five instructional strategies found within the book. One of our teachers commented, “we enjoyed this book and thought it was a nice reminder of what we can be doing to make our lessons better. I also think that because this was a small group session and that we were mixed between schools, it was an awesome way to build community and trust with other colleagues. This was a good experience.”

In the afternoon, we held a debrief session with a focus on next steps to implement these strategies learned in the morning. Teachers then spent the remainder of the day in teams focusing on the following questions: What do we want students to know and be able to do? How do we know they know? What are we doing collectively to intervene when students don’t know? What are we doing collectively to enrich students that already know?

Our district appreciates the ability to provide our teachers additional time for learning and the time to implement our school initiatives. Yesterday was a great day of learning and collaboration! When we know better, we do better. 

RPSD to Increase Time for Teacher Training

At the February 12^th school board meeting, the Rugby Public School Board voted to increase the amount of time for teacher training by adding seven additional days of training to the 2019-2020 school calendar. The school board took advantage of a recent law change that provides schools with additional flexibility for teacher training and storm day makeup.

The approved school calendar for 2019-2020 provides 10 days of professional development for teachers and support staff. This equates to one professional development day per month. The school district will not have students in session on these training days. In the past, we would front load most of our training during our two days of professional development prior to school starting. Due to the time constraints of the school day and a traditional school calendar it has been extremely difficult to gain momentum on our key school initiatives. According to research on adult learning, high quality professional learning is job embedded and continuously occurs throughout the year.

In general, the calendar change will provide teachers more opportunities to engage in school improvement, curriculum planning, and personal professional development during their working hours. It is the belief that quality is greater than quantity in relation to time in front of kids. All professionals need time and opportunities to update, to train, to interact with other professionals, to hone their craft, to reflect on their work, to get better. Effective professional development is distributed over time and not jammed into a single day.

Professionals need opportunities to: become aware of best practices, observe others modeling new or different practices, have opportunities to practice, receive feedback, reflect and interact with others. When teachers are able to meet regularly to reflect on practice, examine student work, agree on common outcomes, research best practice, observe others, share effective practices, everyone benefits. The traditional structure and length of the school day has not allowed for this type of practice. Sometimes the lumberjack must stop sawing to sharpen his blade to improve production. This is no different than the teaching profession, sometimes we need time away from teaching to improve teaching.

You can view the new calendar at this website: https://tinyurl.com/y25zzqkw

Deep Learning

This post has been influenced by a recent book I have been reading, Deep Learning by Fullan, Quinn, and McEachen. Fullan et al., share their insight on deep learning. They define deep learning as, “valuable learning that sticks – it situates the learner as someone who acts upon the world (usually with others), thereby transforming her or himself and the world itself.” This is really about relevance, students need to find relevance in what they do in the classroom. We need to give them opportunities to apply what they learn in real world situations. We need to provide them opportunities to pursue their passion. Real world application and finding their passion will make their school experience more engaging and relevant.

“Put a young person in a stagnant situation or one demanding irrelevant activities, and they will appear unreachable” (Fullan et al., 2018, p. 9).

According to Jenkins (2013), student engagement levels peak during kindergarten at 95% and slowly decline to 39% by the time students reach grade 11. This is very concerning and something we should be considering within our school improvement efforts. How do we create classrooms that students want to attend every day for 175 days of school? I love when my own kids come home from school excited about what they learned at school and continue to explore the topic at home. All kids should experience this sense of excitement throughout their school experience.

Deep learning is the process of acquiring these six global competencies: character, citizenship, collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking.

“In the past, we mostly asked students to solve problems that have already been solved. Today we have moved from asking our students to be consumers of knowledge to asking them to apply their solutions to real-world problems” (Fullan, Quinn, McEachen, 2018, p. 82).

Over the past few weeks, I have been able to witness a few examples of what I would consider deep learning.

Last week, our seniors presented their capstone projects as part of fulfilling the requirements of their senior English course. Seniors were able to pick a topic that they were passionate about and complete a mini-research study on the topic. They researched their topic, conducted surveys, analyzed the data, and provided a presentation on their topic to the public on April 11th. I included a few of the topics in the image below. I was thoroughly amazed by the knowledge they acquired and how they were able to apply it to a real-world situation.

Earlier this week, Mr. Leier and members of his Community Development class were invited to meet with Governor Burgum to discuss their work on the Mainstreet Initiative. These students participated in a community forum earlier this year and were asked to gather information on the following: What are the strengths and weaknesses of our community? If Rugby were to be able to build a Multi-Purpose Community Center, what would residents want to see and how might they support it? The culmination of this project involved a meeting with the Governor and his Main Street Initiative Team in Bismarck, ND.

 “Students have untapped potential, but given voice and choice through deep learning we see them influencing dramatic changes to organizations, society, and pedagogy” (Fullan, Quinn, and McEachen, 2018, p. 47).

The challenge with these types of learning experiences is that they take considerable time to complete, but I’ll bet what they learned about their topic will stick with them for years to come. We need more of these types of learning experiences in school. Let’s trust students to take on real world problems and apply their learning. We will be surprised about what they can accomplish.

Quality Over Quantity

I prepared this information in support of House Bill 1346. HB 1346 shifts our instructional day requirement to hours. This bill creates flexibility for school districts to do some pretty innovative things. I believe that the amount of instructional time may not be as important as the quality of the instructional time.

How does North Dakota’s instructional time requirements compare to other states? 

Currently, North Dakota Century Code requires 1,050 instructional hours for high school and 962.5 instructional hours for elementary school. NDCC also includes a 175 day requirement for all school districts. The chart below compares North Dakota to our neighboring states. Rugby Public School District requires a longer school day than the state requirement. It should be mentioned that many school districts in the state of North Dakota require more instructional time than the state requirement. 

How does North Dakota’s instructional time requirements compare to international educational systems? 

The country of Finland’s educational system has long been admired internationally. Finland continually scores near the top of international educational assessments in math, reading, and science. Finland requires approximately 600 instructional hours for elementary and high school. Finland outperforms the United States with half of the amount of instructional hours. The top 36 international educational systems in the world require 800 hours on average for elementary school and approximately 700 hours for high school. The United States’ average is approximately 1080 instructional hours for both elementary and high school (Sahlberg, 2010, p. 91). 

Why do international educational systems spend less time in front of students? 

In general, lower teaching hours provide teachers more opportunities to engage in school improvement, curriculum planning, and personal professional development during their working hours. It is the belief that quality is greater than quantity in relation to time in front of kids. All professionals need time and opportunities to update, to train, to interact with other professionals, to hone their craft, to reflect on their work, to get better. Effective professional development is distributed over time and not jammed into a single day. Professionals need opportunities to: become aware of best practices, observe others modeling new or different practices, have opportunities to practice, receive feedback, reflect and interact with others. When teachers are able to meet regularly to reflect on practice, examine student work, agree on common outcomes, research best practice, observe others, share effective practices, everyone benefits. The traditional structure and length of the school day has not allowed for this type of practice. Sometimes the lumberjack must stop sawing to sharpen his blade to improve production. This is no different than the teaching profession, sometimes we need time away from teaching to improve teaching. 

Leading the world in the time we spend in front of students is not the answer, redirecting a portion of that time for personal professional development is. The world’s educational systems spend less time in front of students and use that time to improve their practice. 

Our board recently approved our instructional day waiver for our 2019-2020 school calendar. This calendar will have 10 professional development days and 36 (50 minute) late starts for teacher collaboration. HB 1346 would allow districts the flexibility to make structural changes as needed and districts would no longer have to submit a waiver. 

RPS and HAMC partner to become a Reach Out And Read Site.

Rugby Public Schools has partnered with HAMC Johnson Clinic to become a “Reach Out and Read “site. Reach Out and Read is a national nonprofit organization that gives young children a foundation for success by incorporating books into pediatric care and encouraging families to read aloud together.

“We are excited to partner with HAMC by purchasing the books through our Striving Readers Grant” says Mike McNeff, Superintendent of Rugby Public Schools.

Through Reach Out and Read, practitioners at HAMC Johnson Clinic will “prescribe” reading aloud to infants and toddlers. At each well child/well baby check, HAMC practitioners will be giving a book to the child and talking about the importance of reading out loud.

HAMC Physician Assistant, Dustin Hager says “We know that childhood experiences early in life can have a lasting impact on later learning, behavior, and health. Many studies have shown a strong, association between a home reading environment, such as access to books, frequency of reading, and variety of books read, and brain development.”

Jodi Schaan, Medical Staff Coordinator for HAMC says, “We are excited to partner with Rugby Public Schools and the Reach Out and Read program, fostering a love of reading & learning in babies & preschoolers that will benefit them throughout their life.”

Reach Out and Read currently serves 4.7 million children and their families. The Reach Out and Read has 6,000 program sites in all 50 states. The Reach Out and Read model is endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Striving Readers Grant is an Opportunity for the Whole Community

You may remember that Rugby Public Schools was awarded a North Dakota Striving Readers Grant this past fall. It is a federal grant aimed at improving literacy from birth to grade 12. This a wonderful opportunity for our schools, but also for our community! 

Not only do we have some exciting new things going on in K-12 due to this grant, but we are now able to provide literacy programming for children in our community who are in the birth to age five range. 

Karen Black and Gail Rham have been hired to assist us with the birth to age five literacy programming in our community.  Many of you will recognize these names as they were both teachers at Ely Elementary for many years.  They have extensive knowledge working with young students, and are very excited to start working with little ones in our community. 

The Heart of American Library and many of Rugby’s daycare providers have agreed to take part in this literacy programming.  Twice a month Karen and Gail will be doing Story Hour at the Heart of America Library.  This month’s topic will be “Rhyming, Sequencing, and Retelling.”  Story Hour is every Friday from 10:15-11:00AM. We hope to see more families attend this great opportunity!
Similar programming will be provided to our local childcare providers. Mrs. Black and Mrs. Rham will be working with the following childcare providers, Growing Place Daycare, The Kids Next Door, Mindy Stier, Connie Grove, Mandy Kuhnhenn, and Terry Lemar. 

RPS has partnered with the Heart of America Johnson Clinic and the First District Health Unit.  RPS will be providing books to both clinics.  The medical providers will provide books to babies and toddlers as they come in for their well-child visits, as well as continuing to talk about the importance of literacy at an early age. 

Reading, rhyming, singing, and talking — beginning from birth — profoundly influence literacy and language development, the foundations for all other learning! 

The Barrier of Time

I have been thinking about the structure of our school calendar for a long time. It is incredibly difficult to lead complex change within our current calendar. Staff development for educators often occurs during small chunks of time throughout the year (early outs and late starts). Due to our school calendar a considerable amount of time passes between each training. This makes it difficult to develop momentum and continuity from one training to the next. Quality staff development should be continuous and job-embedded. Due to our schedule and the busyness of the school day, learning something new is often placed on the back burner due to more pressing issues.

I did a small study of the large employers within our community. I wanted to see how the other large employers invest in staff development. The graph below compares the annual amount of hours for staff development for each employee classification.

Note: HAMC = Heart of America Medical Center, JD = John Deere, Bremer Bank, FIB = First International Bank, and RPSD = Rugby Public School District. 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t shocked from the data in the chart above. Our teachers receive significantly less staff development than other professional positions within our community. This is a problem and schools need to build more time for staff development into their schedule. We should be investing in our teachers and support staff like the hospital, banks, and area agricultural businesses. 

Here are our core initiatives: 

Professional Learning Communities 

Teachers are grouped by grade level and subject area and these meetings occur every Wednesday from 8:00 - 9:00 AM. Each group focuses on these four questions: 1) What do we want students to know and be able to do? 2) How will we know if they can do it? 3) What will we do for students who already can do what is expected? 4) What will we do to support and help students who have not achieved the standards?

Standards-Based and Competency-Based Learning

Students at Ely Elementary have been receiving what we call a standards-based report card throughout their school experience. This method of reporting progress is helpful to parents and educators to identify weak areas for the student. It allows teachers and support staff to apply appropriate interventions to improve these identified areas. 

Social and Emotional Wellness

A recent student survey indicated that our students are less happy and have been experiencing an increase in depression. The reported increase in depression is not a localized problem that is only impacting our community. State and national survey results suggest that this is a state and national problem for adolescents and adults. To be proactive, we have recently implemented a curriculum that focuses on social and emotional wellness. All students take part in social and emotional wellness activities on a weekly basis. 

Literacy Curriculum and Instruction

Our school district was awarded a $700,000 Striving Readers Grant to focus on literacy from birth to grade 12. We have purchased a new English and Language Arts curriculum for grades K-6. We have also purchased a new intervention curriculum for struggling readers as well. These new curricula will be implemented during the 2019-2020 school year. 

Each of the above mentioned core initiatives require an immense amount of time to carry out with fidelity. For us to continue to build a great school system, we need more time. We are in the midst of developing a calendar that will address the time issue. The proposed calendar will provide 60 hours of staff development time along with approximately 30 hours of late start time for teacher collaboration. We believe the new calendar for the 2019-2020 school year will help us manage our initiatives in a more efficient way. The 2019-2020 school calendar will be approved within the next few months.