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.