What Does it Mean to Belong?

       For the last several years we have heard how important it is to build a sense of belonging for our students. I see a sense of belonging as connected to building strong relationships and providing students windows and mirrors in our curriculums to ensure students feel welcomed in our school environment. It doesn't feel new to me, but I think I struggle a bit when we start hearing a phrase used more frequently but when it feels like we don't quite have a common definition or understanding of what it means to belong. 

   I started wondering about the explicit behaviors that help develop this sense of belonging and a shared way to measure or assess a sense of belonging for both students and staff. To avoid “belonging” becoming just another buzzword, I think we need to think about how we can foster and build a sense of belonging in a sincere way among a group of adults who are unique individuals. I was reminded of Zaretta Hammond's work around building Academic Mindset. One component of that being that students need to feel as if they belong to the community. She poses it as students need to feel that they belong to this community of learners. Several years ago I had brainstormed some statements that I could envision students reflecting on in order to gauge whether or not they feel as if they're a part of the school’s learning community. These statements were inspired by Hammond’s work but are ultimately my interpretation of the adult actions that contribute to students feeling as though they belong. When I was trying to imagine some ways that we could assess whether or not students feel welcomed in learning communities, then, I was thinking about how they feel received and perceived by their adults and classmates. I developed the statements below.

I belong to this community

Community can be defined as broadly as education in general, the whole school, your specific class or even a small group to which they’ve been assigned. 

• The teachers and other staff seem happy to see me when I come into school each day.

• My teachers know and use my name when they speak with me.

• My teacher seems interested to hear my responses to his/her questions.

• My classmates ask me for my opinion and/or discuss classwork with me.

• I have ideas and answers to offer my classmates.

• My teachers' body language and words show that the questions I ask are valuable and worth answering.

That last statement, My teacher’s body language and words show that the questions I ask are valuable and worth answering, got me thinking about what a risk it can feel like to ask a question in a crowd and how easily we can encourage or really discourage students from this act. Students often hear adults say  things like, “there are no dumb questions,” or “your questions will help somebody else.” But if our actions and responses to questions don't show that we believe those and instead they show frustration, aggravation or our response is, “You should know that by now,” or “I've already said that,”  we can shut students down from asking questions. I see questions and our responses to them as a way to solidify a student's place in the community. For example, if a student asks a question, especially one that I realize in the moment is something I probably should have explained more clearly, I can use that as an opportunity to bring other people in. I might say “That is a really great question” and then depending on what the rest of the class is doing at that moment, I might even call the class back together. “Did you all just hear the question that was just asked? I want to make sure everybody hears this because this is a really great question.”  Then I might ask the student who asked the question to repeat it again so that everybody knows where the question came from. If it is a question that the teacher does not necessarily need to supply the answer to I could throw the question out to the class and say hey, “Does anyone have thoughts about this question?” Giving the question back to the class allows the teacher to incorporate the Making Student Thinking Visible Operating Principles by asking students to agree, disagree, and add on to each other’s thoughts. The teacher could even return to the original student with the question and ask them to restate what the peers have shared to build an understanding for them. If it is a question that does have a clear correct answer and can be answered more quickly, in the end I certainly want to clarify that for the student who asked and all others, but  offering the question up to the other students in the class, shows the student who asked the question and all the other students that they don't always have to come to the teacher for questions--that there are people in the room who they could rely on to have ideas, have thoughts, and that they can use each other as people to learn from.  There are twenty-something students and one or two teachers in every room, so it's important in my mind to build the idea that they need to use each other a lot more often than they can use me. In her book Humanizing Classroom Management with Restorative Practices,  Dr. Elizabeth Stein calls these “in-between” moments the classroom the “liminal moments.” Liminal moments are the spaces in between the learning activities and transition where we find opportunities for interactions between adults and students that remind us we are all just humans learning together.  Although this could feel like belaboring a moment that could be handled more quickly, this is also an opportunity to develop the classroom culture where students learn that their questions are important enough to be heard and answered, they actively listen to each other, provide support to their peers, and learn that they belong to and play a role in this learning community. 

Another part of academic mindset that Hammond describes is feeling like you can succeed at this work, that you have a sense of positive self-efficacy, that you are in fact competent and able to do the tasks put in front of you. I'm really thinking about how these parts of belonging and feeling competent translates to the group of adults in a school. When I reflect on the Professional Learning Groups (PGTs) I facilitate for small groups of teachers, I think we have been able to develop a community where all the members feel comfortable asking questions to the group and they rely on each other for learning. When teachers do ask me to join their planning or ask me a question, it’s usually something they’ve already discussed with their grade level peers and they are just looking for an outside perspective. These PGTs are small in number, meet frequently, and share the same content focus. It’s  both implicitly and explicitly stated that all members of our PGT share the same goals for students.   

How  do we build this sense of belonging and sense of self-efficacy among a larger group of adults, though? Who is the facilitator who is cultivating this environment in the way that I believe teachers can in a single classroom?  Does this responsibility fall solely on the building principal? The team of administrators? Could members of  the Instructional Leadership Team help build a sense of belonging? Thinking back to the statement about how we respond to students' questions with our words and body language, I'm not sure how that translates to adults.  Our staff meetings are really few and far between, only five in an entire year, so we don't have that same “whole class- the teacher at the front of the room setting” that we might have for students to build or teachers to build that response to questioning in the classroom. How do we do this in the in-between times, in the professional group time meetings, or  in the day-to-day moments? This has to go beyond the superficial icebreakers or the formal circle setting, rather, I think we need to focus on the smaller day-to-day interactions with each other, the liminal moments among adult interactions.  Thinking about the liminal spaces between adult interactions reminded me of a PGT activity we engaged in last year. We had established that our values as a staff were Communication, Connection, and Support  so we generated examples of what it looks like when we live out our values. A colleague and I who are pretty different personality wise, both ended up writing the same thing, which was that we greet our colleagues in the hall. It has become pretty common to pass each other in the hall and have a colleague not acknowledge a greeting from someone or just  initiate a hello. The longer you go without talking to somebody the more difficult and awkward it can become when you do. I don't think that we want students going so long without speaking to their classmates, students talk to each other. Yet we do it as adults all the time and then we go into our pockets and we talk about how these kids have no social skills. 

The other element in the sense of belonging that maybe isn't as clear to me or  that I'm struggling with and I think we probably need to just define what we mean when we say belong. I think that's why when I read Zaretta Hammond's book and was thinking about academic mindset. I love how she breaks that up into the different components of academic mindset and how those all need to be in place for students to believe that they are Learners. I think those belonging is just one of them, but I do think that for teachers we also need to think about their sense of self-advocacy because I feel that that has to impact your sense of belonging. I remember being a twenty-two year old  brand new teacher surrounded by veterans. When I came into teaching, I was the youngest in my building by at least a couple of years and the majority of the staff members were decades-long veterans. Obviously, I didn't have the same capacity or knowledge as them because they had years of experience on their side. The only way I saw to get to  the point where I would feel like I belonged in that community was to learn from the people around me. I was fortunate to have both a building principal and a number of veteran staff members who were more than willing to let me into their classrooms and pester them with dozens of questions to help me learn from them. Similar to the way I feel building relationships for teachers has become a bit of a confusing and superficial phrase, I think we could also run the danger of focusing on “belonging” but only in a very superficial way. For example, if we think of a sense of belonging among staff being measured in ways such as I attend all the social staff outings and I have a strong group of friends, we could miss the deeper components of belonging to a community. I imagine another part of feeling like you belong to a group is also feeling:

• I am capable of pulling my weight in the large and small tasks. 

• I can help students be successful learners.

• I am working to hone my craft. 

• I seek out help from colleagues or I have colleagues I feel I can learn from. 

If you're not feeling in your core that you can actually be successful at this whole reason that we're here,  which is to teach kids to learn, then it seems to me it's going to be fairly difficult to ever feel like you truly belong in this profession in this building. When we're talking about building a sense of  belonging we also need to think about our adult staff members as a group of learners. Recalling the classroom scenario where we called the class together to share their responses to a peer question and built community and interdependence among the student learners, makes me wonder how we can explicitly cultivate this among staff. It can be so easy to fall into the pocket of colleagues who you naturally connect with but we’re missing opportunities to learn from each other.

I am interested in discussing what it actually means to build a sense of belonging among a diverse group of adults,  so that we don't focus on too many of the superficial ways that we think make people belong. If we can be more explicit about this, I think we can get to the heart of the core components that people need to feel like they belong to this community and that they have a sense of purpose and competency in this profession. During end of year reflections I heard several staff members say something to the effect of, "It starts with us," when discussing the behaviors we want to develop among students. It can feel counterintuitive in a profession where time feels like we're always fighting against time to say, let's step back and focus on the adults rather than rushing to bring this to the students. If we actually want to develop a sense of belonging for both the veteran and newer staff members in a building that lasts beyond a single school year, we have to invest the time in our adult learners and believe that it will transfer to our student spaces. 

Breaking down Icebreakers with UDL

For our back to school meeting, my principal asked me to do a brief presentation on UDL for the staff. As a school we first started learning about Universal Design for Learning over ten years ago but in the last handful of years about half of our staff has changed. Even though many of staff are new to our school I couldn't also assume that they were completely new to UDL, so I wanted to do something that could serve as both a refresher and look an introduction to thinking in UDL mindset. I knew during the staff meeting many teachers would be thinking more about their first days with students, so I decided to use the common beginning of school year practice of icebreakers to introduce the key concepts of UDL.

In early August I was at lunch with my daughter, her friend, and her friend's mom. My daughter's friend had me in stitches when she was relaying her recent experiences at a summer camp for the arts which she has gone to and enjoyed for years. This summer, she described, wasn't hitting quite the same which she believed had a lot to do with the new teaching staff. She then went on to politely critique some of the instructional decisions the teachers had made. While her demeanor was comical, her observations were so keen and thoughtful. A basic summary of her observations is that the teachers were not using time effectively which resulted in less opportunity to practice and fewer pieces of music learned.  

Without argument, her biggest gripe about the mismanagement of time was the over use of icebreaker activities during each session. Her point really lingered with me and I began thinking more about how we balance the intention behind icebreakers with instruction. In my mind, icebreakers are a microcosm of the much larger issue--the polarization of Social Emotional Learning and high academic demands. But that's a post for another day. For now, I'll focus on using a UDL mindset when incorporating icebreakers.

The start of the school year is a great time to talk about icebreakers because it's such a common practice as we are introduced to new groups of students. When we're searching online for current icebreakers, the implicit goal we have in mind is that we want to build relationships with and among our students. While that is our overarching goal, once we decide on specific activity, we need to think about what the goal or outcome is for this activity in this class period. As an example, we'll use a common icebreaker called Get to Know You Bingo, or a Find Someone Who, or Class Scavenger Hunt, pictured below. The basic format of this type of activity is to circulate around the room collecting signatures from classmates who fit the description in that box. 

Example Goals: The specific goal for this activity could be to speak with   X  # of new classmates. To learn new facts about   X  # of new classmates. To identify common interests between you and at least one new classmate.

My son reminded me just how important it is to be explicit about the goal of an activity like this. He saw the Bingo board below on my computer screen and said, "Oh, Human Bingo! How do you win?" Without clarification on the activity's goal, he'd be competing to win at a "game" that isn't winnable and miss the whole point of the human connection.

• What are some predictable ways in which my learners might vary in their needs, preferences and strengths?
• What potential barriers can I anticipate in this activity?

After I've determined the goal, I start thinking about ways my learners might vary. It's not possible to account for every single learner variability especially without knowing our students, but it is predictable that:

• some learners will be introverted and not feel comfortable chatting with a lot people
• some learners will have first language that is not English
• Some learners may be easily overstimulated by noise
• Some learners just want to get to the content

With the goal and consideration to learner variability, I look at the Human Bingo icebreaker and imagine what barriers might exist in this specific activity that would make it difficult for some learners to achieve the goal. 

Some potential barriers:

• All the boxes are text only and might include unknown words
• structure of the activity requires speaking to a many students/ requires a certain amount of social skills for peer interaction
• room could become quite noisy 
• requires mobility to move around the class freely
• not very structured which could be anxiety producing
• The boxes might be filled with things that feel irrelevant to students

At the meeting the staff came up with these and even more potential barriers. Listing out all the barriers for this activity could make it easy to think we should just skip it altogether. But, UDL is "not about the elimination of any practice. It's about looking at that practice and asking, what are the potential barriers there." (Novak, K). This is where the UDL Guidelines come into play. Looking closely at the barriers in this icebreaker, I then go right to the Framework and consult the Engagement Guidelines to think about the structures and supports I can proactively build into this activity.

The table above provides just a handful of ways I imagined structuring this activity to proactively minimize barriers and maximize my students' engagement. For example, thinking back to one of the barriers I anticipated--this activity is not very structured and roaming about the room being expected to talk with many peers could be anxiety producing. Some students might choose to speak to people they know seeking comfort or others might be overwhelmed with how to approach unfamiliar peers and talk to no one. To account for this I can intentionally structure the activity by dividing the room into quadrants and directing the students to roam a smaller area to start, limiting the amount of choices and uncertainty. I can also model the peer interaction and provide some sentence starters to provide students the social language they need. If language is a barrier I can intentionally add images to the chart which help more learners access the content of each box. (Example chart provided below.)

Each of the examples on the right of the table represents an intentional decision a teacher could make to structure this activity to reduce barriers and increase the chances that learners will be able to meet the intended goals. Establishing a clear goal is integral to this process. 

Thinking back to my daughter's friend, here's a kid who has eagerly chosen to spend free time learning more about something she is highly motivated and engaged in learning but she finds herself frustrated by the lack of challenge and focus on learning. It's much more likely that our students will come to us because it's mandatory and their motivation and engagement will vary greatly. For these different types of learners and all the ones in between, it's important to look at all activities through a UDL lens. I believe one simple way we can build relationships with students is to acknowledge that their time is valuable and prove this to them by making all classroom activities as accessible and meaningful as possible. And that  can start from day one, even with something as "simple" as an icebreaker. 

Pity & Compassion: Impact on Expectations

Atlas of the Heart Reflections continued...
Near Enemies
In Chapter 7, Brown introduced me to a concept I understood immediately, but had never heard labeled before. Brown shares Kristin Neff's description of the Buddhist concept of "near and far enemies" of emotion: "near enemy is a useful Buddhist concept referring to a state of mind that appears similar to the desirable state... but actually undermines it." The behaviors and attitudes of "far enemies" are easier to recognize because they are polar opposites, while behaviors and attitudes of the emotion's "near enemy" can be more challenging to recognize because they can appear more similar. I was particularly interested in Brown's discussion of compassion and pity. 
Compassion/Pity
The far enemy of compassion is cruelty. In the classroom, this might translate to a teacher using extreme sarcasm with students, being overly critical of the student without offering meaningful feedback, or even having a "no excuses" attitude with all students, refusing to acknowledge that not all students have the same conditions. These are pretty easy to see and if a teacher can't recognize this in themselves, an admin, colleague, student or coach would likely be able to identify these actions.

The idea that the near enemy of compassion is pity, though, really struck me. Unlike cruelty, it would be more subtle to recognize when a teacher  believes they have great compassion for their students, but actually behaves in a way that pities them. 

Brown quotes Jack Kornfield who writes, "pity says, 'oh that poor person. I feel sorry for people like that.' "  This separates us from our students and sets us up to be the person who can swoop in and save them because we see ourselves as better than. I immediately began thinking about what this does for our academic expectations. When we feel bad for, or pity, our students' life circumstances, learning struggles, or other aspects it's easier to excuse them for tasks and experience that feel "too challenging."  Although the near/far enemy concept is a new one for me, I can recall instances where what felt like compassionate behavior was really more pity. I was also reminded of Zaretta Hammond's work on "dependent learners" and how as teachers we often perpetuate this dependence when we don't actively cultivate independence and academic mindsets. Pity makes it difficult to push students to independence because this emotion views the students as incapable of rising to the expectations we have for them. 

When we pity students we say, "How sad. I couldn't possibly expect too much from you so I will lower my standards." With compassion we say, "I know this is difficult for you, but I won't disrespect you by lowering my standards. We will work toward this together." Brown doesn't go into this too much  in the chapter, but she says one element of pity is "a passive, self-focused reaction." I imagine that when we pity students it is much more implicit and compassion has more explicit actions. For example, if my pity for a student drives me to give them credit for "nearly correct" work, I probably won't say anything directly to the student, I'll just give them the credit. The student may believe they were proficient when maybe they weren't or the student may KNOW that the answers weren't actually satisfactory and now they realize I don't have very high expectations for them. Compassion, though, seems to require more explicit behavior--a conversation with the student about exactly where they were correct and where they started to go wrong, an acknowledgement of their effort and feedback on how to improve. This explicit conversation sends a clear message to this student that I will not let them fall short of the standard. The chart to the left shows a couple specific classroom scenarios where we could respond with pity or with compassion.

As I reflected on my own pity/compassion responses with students, I began thinking about how this translates to my interactions with teachers in the coaching role. Honestly, in some ways responding with compassion as a coach feels more challenging. Teaching is a vulnerable activity and having a coach witness your teaching can be intimidating. Directive Coaching is a style that feels uncomfortable for me when I am uncertain if the teacher wants this direction. Building out the scenarios in the table to the right helped me realize that compassionate responses have more to do with honesty, conversation, and follow through than they do with directing a teacher on exactly what to do. This is an important reminder for me because in the past I have felt guilty about responding in a "passive self-focused" ways with teachers because I was too nervous to offend them or damage a relationship. In the same way that we want teachers to hold high expectations for all students, we must do the same for all our teachers. Anything less than this says, we don't believe our teachers are capable of growing, which is certainly not a message I intend to send. 

Reading about pity/compassion and reflecting on how these emotions negatively and positively impact our expectations has been timely. As a district, we are entering year 2 of trying to increase equitable literacy experiences for our students across classrooms and schools. A foundational idea of this work is that we must establish and maintain  high expectations by providing students academically rigorous opportunities. We can't pity our students by jumping in too quickly and saving them from a challenging text or task and take away their opportunities to think, struggle, and succeed on their own. Instead, we can compassionately acknowledge the struggle and provide students timely supports they need to meet the expectation. This mindset feels equally  important to apply to the coach/teacher relationship when thinking about saving versus supporting teachers. Our responses must show we respect them enough to hold high expectations. 

Atlas of the Heart in the classroom

I recently read Brene Brown's newest book, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of the Human Experience. Brown's work is always a powerful tool for reflection for me but I generally think about it more for my own friendships and family relationships. While I had plenty of those moments while reading Atlas, more so I kept coming back to the classroom and implications of this work for educators and schools. Rather than one long post with all my thoughts, I’m going to generate several shorter posts covering the most salient connections to teachers, students, and school.

Restaurants and classrooms. 

In the first chapter of Atlas, Brown talks about the maybe not so coincidental fact that many of the people who work on her team have all had extensive experience working in restaurants. She characterizes servers as people with "hustle" who understand the importance of teamwork and collaboration. When she described someone seeing a sugar packet on the ground and walking over it because it's not their job, his, she says this is a sign that they are not a good fit for her team. I chuckled at this scenario, thinking about how often I pick up stray papers, water bottles and other scraps as  I walk down the hallways in school. Given that I worked in restaurants, I'm probably a bit biased to agree with Brown's view of servers as hardworking and committed to doing whatever is need to make the whole operation run smoothly.

Brown draws on two restaurant expressions to describe the difference between the emotions of stress and overwhelm. Stress, Brown says, is like when you are "in the weeds" as a server. Being in the weeds is when you are falling behind in your tasks and you feel temporarily like you can’t catch up. Overwhelm, or being “blown” is when you have such high levels of stress that you almost can’t perform at all. You are so overwhelmed that you are almost frozen and hardly know where to even begin accomplishing your tasks,

This comparison caused me to reflect on how teachers ask for help and how helpful I can be as a coach.  In the restaurant atmosphere, if someone says they're in the weeds, as a fellow server I'd ask what they need and step in and start pouring drinks, bringing food or whatever they needed to a table for them. Basically I'd start doing a few of the very simple tasks, none of which are hard or require tons of thinking but add up to what feels like an insurmountable job. In the classroom this might be something as simple as making a few extra copies, passing out some papers, helping a student or couple students get caught up on what they're missing or helping them find the work in the computer. 

If someone was blown, in a restaurant another server likely couldn't take over because they  have their own tables which is why the kitchen manager generally steps in that situation. Similarly, if a teacher has reached a day of being blown, or even a single class period, a coach could step in. They could go to the bathroom or take a walk and it's just understood that I will remain in their classroom and take over. Because this is a predictable situation, I probably even have a few back pocket activities at the ready for each grade that I can have kids do if I know what the activities they had been planning to do. As Brown says in this chapter, if someone has reached the point of being blown, they are not in the head space to step in and explain all the details of their lesson plan. Just as a the kitchen manager sends the blown server away for a break instead of asking them all the things that need to be done, a teacher might need this same relief from the environment altogether. They need a brief period of "non doing,” which Brown described as time when they can calm down and return to a state where they are not totally cognitively overloaded.

When I was in the classroom I created quick ways for my student groups to let me know they needed my help or did they did not. Modeled after the ping pong paddles I had seen in the Bubba Gump restaurant, each group had a paddle with a green side that read “Go Ms. Gray, go” (we’re good, no help needed) and a red side which read, “Stop, Ms Gray, stop,” (we’d like your help). The fact that my 6th graders actually used this silly method is one of the messy reasons I adore 6th graders!  The paddles came to mind in this section because I realized they were an explicit way for my students to identify when they needed me to intervene and when they wanted to be independent.

Reflecting on my own coaching, I am always most hesitant to step in start helping  in newer teachers’ classrooms, mostly because I never want to appear as if I’m taking over because they are incapable. I have the easiest time recognizing if a teacher is in the weeds or blown when I know them really well and we’ve already developed a relationship. Although I offer support to all the teachers I work with, we’ve definitely never established a formal way to ask for support. Paddles would certainly be over the top, but I have been wondering if there is some sort of signal to establish if the teacher wants me to step in during class. I even thought about giving each teacher a small laminated picture of some weeds on one side and heavy wind on the other side for them to discretely display if I’m in the room and then I can just jump in. Probably that’s overthinking it and it’s as simple as having individual conversations with newer teachers at the start of the year to directly ask them how comfortable they feel with me jumping in mid-class. Either way, Brown’s restaurant comparison of stress and overwhelm helped me think about the levels of support teachers need in different situations.  

Every teacher has a class/day where they find themselves stressed and in the weeds and asking for and accepting small bursts of help should be a reliable source of support. Being blown, or totally overwhelmed, though, feels like it could have larger consequences when teachers aren’t provided the “non-doing” time away to recollect themselves. Maybe teachers use a sick day to give themselves the time away they need or perhaps they show up late for a common plan session and aren’t in the right frame of mind to plan productively. Teaching is mentally and emotionally taxing work, so a coach’s support couldn’t eliminate these scenarios altogether, but this excerpt from Atlas has had me thinking more about what I can do to support teachers more actively to make sure each “shift” runs as smoothly as possible.

Missing Instructional Mentorship

Over the last several years,  I have noticed both a growing impatience with teachers as well as an oversimplification of how to do incredibly complex things, such as build relationships or engage and empower learners. Often times teachers receive feedback in the form of directives to differentiate, establish better routines, or to include student voice and choice, with little modeling or support for teachers. It can be easy to fall into the nostalgia black hole of how much better things used to be, so while trying to avoid that path, I've been thinking about what changes might account for impatience and oversimplification. As a result, I've been reflecting a lot lately about my most influential mentors when I was a young teacher as well as what role mentorship plays in my work as a coach.  Ultimately, I believe some of the shifts I've noticed for teachers is because some of the forms of mentorship that shaped me as an educator are missing for teachers right now.  

When I was first hired as a middle school ELA teacher I had to meet with the Superintendent to sign my contract to officially accept my position.  In addition to the not so minor detail that the superintendent sat in a chair beside me rather than across from me at his desk, another moment from this meeting has been cemented in my memory. I'm sure he had dozens of other meetings and responsibilities that day, but  he patiently talked with me about teaching. He talked to me about getting students’ attention and how that can often be done more effectively by quieting down myself rather than raising my voice in desperation and gave me other sound advice for a new teacher that were drawn from lessons of his own experiences as a new teacher. At the time I definitely listened to and accepted his advice, but it wasn't until years later that I really appreciated this experience. The fact that he took so much of his time talking teaching with a 22 year old rookie who might not have made it through the year makes me grateful for this opportunity.

My first principal's mentorship began even before I officially started working under her. During my interview, she acknowledge that I didn't have any teaching experience so it wouldn't be fruitful to ask many of the questions she'd typically ask. Instead, so she drew on something I had a lot of experience in--working in restaurants. She used scenarios of how I  handled irate customers, when to ask for a manager's help, how I approached working with other servers, and more. Rather than emphasizing my obvious deficiencies, she gave me an opportunity to speak knowledgeably about what I did know. This was the only interview I exited feeling like maybe I actually could do this work. With some perspective, I can see that what she did for me in that interview is exactly what we want to do as teachers with our students; meet students where they are and build on the extensive real world knowledge they bring to the classroom.

      Once I began working for her, my principal's mentorship continued. She freed me from duties so that I could observe other ELA teachers who served as models for classroom management and strong instruction. Our staff meetings often had professional readings about instruction, included  text-based discussion protocols, and tangible techniques to implement in our classrooms before the next staff meeting. At times we examined student work, shared lessons and best practices. Professional Learning Groups didn't appear in our district officially until almost ten years later, but she certainly ensured we were a group of professionals learning together. Like all my best teachers from my K-12 education, I still have and reference some of the readings and materials she provided us. On a more individual basis, I greatly appreciated the conversations I had with her after she had been in my classroom.  She seemed genuinely curious when she asked questions about the lessons she had observed and also named very specific actions during the lesson that were positive. For example, rephrasing a question in a different way to elicit more student responses. She offered small but practical teaching advice. Specially, I remember she commented on increasing my wait time after posing a question. This was something, she said, that she always struggled with as well so she got into the habit of slowly tapping each finger on her leg or arm one at a time to remind herself of that time. Even when I'm facilitating a PLG for adults, I still use this strategy to remind myself to slow down and allow people time to process and speak.

A    

       A little later into my career I had an assistant principal who served as an incredibly effective instructional leader mentor. He visited my classroom often and stopped by my room to informally talk to me about instructional decisions I had made. Eventually he introduced me to the Universal Design for Learning framework by connecting specific elements he saw in my classroom to the guidelines of UDL. Our conversations were fueled by curiosity, respect, and reciprocal learning.  Aside from having a profound effect on my classroom, his mentorship as an instructional leader also solidified for me that teacher professional development must be a priority in a school and that it works best when classroom teachers and administrators collaborate to actualize a plan.

I feel fortunate to have had mentors who exhibited both high expectations and patience with me as a teacher. They weren't simply telling me I needed to build relationships with or engage my students. They were doing those things with and for me. It is this  human element of teaching and the network of mentorship  that feels like it is missing for teachers right now.  Being present in my classroom was an essential element of the mentor relationships I experienced and for some (likely many) reasons, this seems as if that's not as common right now. It has begun to feel as if it's not even possible right now, as if there are so many other burdens placed on administrators that being in classrooms feels like a luxury more than a priority. 

Recently, I've been wondering whether the coach roles are intended predominately to provide the type of mentorship I received early on in my career. It has certainly never been explicitly communicated that way, but as we increase the number of coaching positions it seems that coaches are more likely to be in classrooms frequently. It follows, then, that coaches would be more likely to have conversations about instructional moves and decisions with teachers.  I'm unsure, though, if this relationship has the same school-wide impact as strong relationships  teachers/admin formed on discussions about the complexities of day-to-day teaching. 

Retrieval Practice in Practice

NEA's September issue contained an article titled, "The Science of Learning," which shared some practical instructional tips classroom teachers could learn from psychology teachers based on what we know about how students' brains work. The article as a whole offers several interesting ideas and it's a quick read (full article linked here), but one idea in particular stood out to me--retrieval practice.

For the last few years, I have been thinking about retrieval practice and its potential benefits in learning.  Basically, the act of struggling in short, frequent bursts (practicing) to recall (retrieving) information that you've previously learned actually helps that information become more solidified in your brain.  UDL being the lens through which I view just about everything, when I first started learning about retrieval practice I created the image below to help myself visualize what is happening in learners' brains when they're putting in and pulling out information they are trying to learn. 

                                                   

My image is likely an oversimplification of the process, but at the very least, it helps remember that when we're asking students to express and act on what they've learned, that info lives in the back of their brain and they have to "reach in" and "pull" it out. Like a neglected forest path, thick with overgrowth, the unused pathways in our brains become overgrown and it takes longer to travel through to get to the information. Retrieval practice is the intentional act of "traveling" that path in our brains to wear down the overgrowth and helps us access the information quicker and with greater durability. Think of it as actively working toward "Use it" to avoid the "lose it" scenario.

There are a few key points about retrieval practice  I feel we should consider before implementing with our students.

• FORMATIVE: Retrieval Practice is PRACTICE for learning and not an Assessment of learning. Retrieval practice activities should be low stakes and ungraded. Attaching a grade, quiz, or assessment to retrieval activities removes the practice element and adds a possibly punitive element to what should be a low-risk practice. Frequent practice helps students feel more comfortable and confident with their own ability to learn, which is what helps students feel successful and see themselves as capable.
• STRUGGLE: Struggle is an intentional and essential component of retrieval practice--working hard to recall information has been shown to increase the likelihood that you will remember it in the future. With struggle, though, it's important to consider how long to allot for retrieval practice activities so that students aren't struggling for 20+ minutes with what feels like no end in sight. Alternatively, allotting way too little time could cause students to shut down and send the message that the activity is about speed and not recalling information.
• NO REFERENCE MATERIAL: While we want our students to be resourceful learners who access references and resources when needed,  the purpose of retrieval practice is to strengthen the pathways to information in our own brain so we don't have to rely on those references all the time. Since there is no assessment tied to this, retrieval practice activities should be designed so students don't feel the pressure to pull out materials and copy answers.

 Retrieval Practice in the Classroom

1. Retrieval Grid-( idea from NEA article) Similar to a bingo cards, there are a variety of questions for students to answer, with lower point items being materials they've just learned and highest point value being material from longer ago (reinforcing the practicing of pulling out old info to build stronger neural pathways to that info). With practice, over time students should notice they can pull more info and faster.  I made sample one for ELA that could be created for any content area. The point values and timeline for when you pull information from can vary as well.  

Implementation Tips: Give students a short amount of time to complete as many questions on the grid as they can before revealing answers. Students count up the number of correct answers and add points. You could use the grid with similar content ("testing" same info) later in the week and have students count points on a second attempt. These points are purely for the students' own self-reflection about how much of the content they've mastered. I could also see a group work element to this after some independent time with the grid. 

Sample grid HERE

2. Flashcards (as group activity): While flashcards are not revolutionary, especially for people who have learned how to learn/study, the intentional practice of recalling information through flashcards is a useful tool. Designing lessons so that all students get the support and push they need is challenging and especially in rooms with a single teacher, it can be difficult to find small group time with students who need more support. Retrieval Practice tells us that all learners can benefit from actively recalling previously learned content and flashcard stations could be a way to meet both teacher and student goals. (Note-Quizlet and other online flashcard-esque tools are great as well, but there is also benefit to slowing down this process and ensuring that students are truly retrieving information before moving onto the next card). 

Implementation Tips: Create a couple different decks of flashcards with a range of content learned at different periods of time--there could even be a couple terms/concepts from the previous year's content. For students who have shown competency in the current content goals, maybe they have a deck with more cards of older information to increase the challenge. If your intention is to build in face time with students who need an extension, maybe there is a deck for students who haven't yet mastered the material with a greater number of recently learned information to build confidence and success. In either case, students will need explicit directions around "quizzing" each other using cards. 

For example: display only one side of the flashcard to the person being quizzed. Try not to rush or settle for partial answers--let the person being quizzed talk out the full answer and see how close they get. Leave all cards in the deck--even the ones the ones you get correct easily--repeated exposure to the information helps cement the learning. Shuffle the deck so the cards aren't asked in the same order every time.

Both of the examples above require a bit of planning on the teachers part and might also take a little more time than other possible retrieval practice opportunities.  A more "on the stop"  retrieval practice example could be a Do Now or Exit Ticket activity. Give students a topic (recent or near distant) and ask them to write down everything they remember about the topic. This could lead to pair n' share comparisons, small group talk or even a whole class chalkboard splash.  While working with  some 6th graders on Greek & Latin roots, I incorporated quick retrieval practices by asking students to list as many of the roots we had studied and their definitions as they could recall.  They checked their accuracy and total count against the answers I displayed, and we did that a couple times throughout the week--each time taking under 5 minutes total.  Activities like these could be done relatively quickly and give students chances to pull that info to front of mind. 

In their book make it stick,  the authors make the point that teachers may be the ones initially directing and introducing the retrieval practice, but that at some point that can and should shift to students doing this for themselves. When we offer these structured opportunities for our students with our content, we also provide them with explicit study skills that help them become more intentional learners. 

Resources for reading more retrieval practice:  

• Retrieval Practice website: https://www.retrievalpractice.org/why-it-works
• make it stick: The Science of Successful Learning (Brown, Roediger III, McDaniel)
• "The Science of Learning" https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/science-learning

 

Look Micro-routine Recap

In the ELA Department's most recent PLG we examined a couple Micro-routines for Literacy put out by New Vision for Public Schools.  One appealing feature of these routines, which have been adapted specifically for remote instruction, is that they are intended to take a short amount of time and have very few steps. As I've been sharing micro-routines with teachers in and out of the ELA department, I sense a healthy amount of skepticism from teachers about the actual amount of time these routines would take. While it is within our control and discretion to adjust the timing to suit our students, I also see the value in keeping to these time frames. 

For one, we know that everything (everything!) seems to take longer in the remote classroom. I wonder if sticking to the brief time limits of these micro-routines could actually be a way to increase efficiency. If we incorporate the routine frequently enough,  students' ability to respond within the time frames may increase. 

Another benefit to sticking closely to the allotted time is that even if things feel like they're going poorly, the routine only lasts for 6-ish minutes. When we think about the UDL concept of varying demands and resources, one really interesting way to create a reasonable challenge for students is to play with time. If they run out of details to share or feel confused about the image you're using in this routine, they know each step of the routine will only last for two minutes and they won't be struggling for an undetermined length of time.

WHY  include the Look routine? 

• To provide multiple representations of ideas and concepts students are studying
• when using images/art specifically, to provide an alternative to print text.
• To provide opportunities for students to observe closely and identify specific details
• To pique students' curiosity about something they will read more about or extended their thinking about a topic they've already read about.
• To increase students' comfort and confidence in speaking out loud and sharing with the class
• Naming specific details students have observed seems like a low-risk, high reward opportunity for student participation

HOW I might implement Look:

(Ideas that follow assume that the routine has been introduced and practiced with familiar content and students are familiar with the routine).

• Choose an interesting image that connects in some way to a thematic idea of a text students will be reading in ELA class.
• Display the image for students and allow them 2 minutes to look closely at the image and use the CHAT  to record as many details as they notice in the quadrants. Give students 2 minutes to share out loud the details they find to the most interesting in the quadrants (as outlined in the slides example we looked at). 
• Repeat the Look process with a second related image. There are a few possible approaches I can imagine for this.
• If your students are efficient with breakout rooms this could be a way for students to engage in the Look routine in a much smaller group.  When students return to the whole group (after 4 min), each group could share out the most interesting details they discussed.
• We discussed the possibility of assigning students different quadrants to focus on and share out with the class. This could be done by displaying a list of student names in a grid on the slide (pictured below). Assigning students to specific quadrants could help limit the amount of students entering in the chat at once in the first part of the routine.

Photo from National Coalition Against Censorship blog

• Pair these images with a short excerpt from the anchor text students are reading. After students have examined and discussed ideas in one or two images, provide them with a short reading excerpt that examines some of the ideas reflected in the images. Students could complete the reading semi-synchronously annotating for a specific reading focus. For example, after examining the two images about "courage" students could read an excerpt from Number the Stars. A possible reading focus could be to identify evidence in the excerpt that reveals a character's courage. (RL 6.1 citing evidence and RL 3 character's reaction). Students could complete a reading in pairs, small groups, or independently depending on how the teacher wanted to structure this.
• Return whole group and have students share examples of the textual evidence they cited. Examples could be shared by cold-calling on several students, asking students to agree, disagree, or add-on to a peer's response. Students could type evidence in the chat, but if they've also completed a Google Doc with annotations, sharing in the chat may not be worth the time.
• Possible Exit Tickets: Use a Google Form and ask students to share an interesting observation they heard a classmate share today. Ask students to explain which of the two images they think best pairs with the excerpt they read. Students will have to pull evidence from both texts in order to explain thoroughly (RL 6.1).

Below are some examples that I compiled should anyone want to incorporate this routine into an upcoming lesson. Each of the images align with a thematic idea explored in each of the Trimester 1 Anchor Texts for grades 6-8. 

Grade 6 Examples for the thematic idea of courage. Number the Stars

   

Grade 7 Examples for the thematic idea of empathy. Walk Two Moons

Grade 8 Examples for the thematic idea of censorship. Fahrenheit 451

One of the groups also discussed the idea of concealing some of the quadrants in the beginning of the routine and to slowly reveal each quadrant so the students could see the image being pieced together. This was an easy adjustment to the slide by simply adding filled-in shapes and covering up the quadrants 2-4. The video below shows an example of the "slow reveal" version of Look. 

For anyone interested in using the images they slides template is linked here. Please share additional ideas or experiences with the Look Micro-routine!