by andrew@learnedleadership.org | Mar 12, 2013 | Blog, Teacher's Corner
…that is the question. If you spend any amount of time around teenagers, like I do, you’re probably familiar with their ever-present sleepy look. In class, in the hallway, in the library, almost everywhere one looks you’ll see at least one teenager on the verge of falling asleep. When asked why, students will often respond by saying “I was up late doing homework.” Being a teacher I’m familiar with the homework demands placed on students, and as a former teenager I remember the added exhaustion that comes with sports, activities, relationships, and working a part-time job (a experience many of our international students aren’t familiar with). Of course most teachers won’t standby and let students sleep in their class, and I would argue that if they’re trying to you might want to rethink some of the teaching strategies being used in your classroom. However, what about the other spaces in the school? Should students be allowed a place in school to rest during study hall? How about a quick nap over lunch in the quiet library? Is this ok? At the risk of sharing a “when I was your age story”, I don’t remember many teachers allowing students the liberty to find a comfy corner to sleep when I was a student. Yet, I know there is a lot of research about the benefits of napping, and as a fan of quick-naps to boost productivity, I often wish we’d encourage this practice more in the workplace. After all don’t all those cutting edge companies in Silicon Valley providing napping rooms, video game consoles, and other non-work distractions. The truth...
by andrew@learnedleadership.org | Aug 18, 2012 | Teacher's Corner, Uncategorized
Earlier this year Teresa Sullivan, President of the University of Virginia, was forced to resign because some on the school’s board felt she hadn’t capitalized on the online learning market. Whether or not her dismal was justified (she was reinstated only 2 weeks later), it’s not uncommon for the education industry at all levels to be behind the curve on innovations in technology. It seems that even when schools take a brave step towards engaging technology, they can be ineffective at accomplishing their main objectives. An example of this is the constant monitoring and blocking schools attempt to do to deter students from misusing their access to the internet. Of course some form of monitoring is acceptable and needed, but it seems that most of the time the only people schools effectively ban from Facebook are the teachers. Hopefully by now the conversations in your school has shifted from what technology should we allow in the classroom, to how can we use technology to reach our communities better. Over the past few years I’ve been experimenting with using a class website to distribute materials, keep students informed on class assignments, and among many other things to give parents a window into the classroom. Rejuvenated by the summer and a late start to the year because of monsoon flooding, I took sometime to update my weebly.com based class website (take a peek if your curious). In addition to adding various calendars and schoology.com for online grade reporting, I’ve tried to use the website to give students better access to materials that I’d generally print for the classroom. I’ve wanted to...
by andrew@learnedleadership.org | May 4, 2012 | Blog, Teacher's Corner
Over the last few weeks of interviews with school leaders, I’ve heard the common theme that being able to communicate effectively with others is a priceless skill for leaders. This isn’t shocking news to any of us, yet sometimes it can be very easy to shutdown the lines of communication with our coworkers when things don’t go the way we planned. Recently a school head in Hong Kong reminded me of this by saying “we can never forget that we’re working with human beings”, and I would add; the good and the bad. Keeping this simple truth in mind as we operate in our schools may hopefully bring a higher level of civility in the midst of discussion. Simply knowing this is great, however, what’s transformational is setting a framework of expectations with each other when collaborating, negotiating or building consensus. A friend of mine at the International School of Kuala Lumpur forwarded me their Seven Norms of Collaborative Work, which I believe is powerful tool for building a share vision for our schools. The Seven Norms of Collaborative Work Pausing: Pausing actually slows down the “to and fro” of discussion. There are fewer ‘frames per second’ to deal with. It provides for the precious “wait time” which has been shown in classrooms to dramatically improve student critical thinking. Pausing and the acceptance of moments of silence creates a relaxed and yet purposeful atmosphere. Silence, however initially uncomfortable, can be an excellent indicator of productive collaboration. Pausing also signals to others that their ideas and comments are worth thinking about. It dignifies their contribution and implicitly encourages future participation....
by andrew@learnedleadership.org | Mar 25, 2012 | Teacher's Corner
Clearly there is a big difference between a bad teacher and an amazing teacher and most of us don’t fall into either camp. I believe Dr. Jurgensen’s article is a good reminder for both teachers and administrators. For teachers, it’s a reminder of the multi-layered and comprehensive style that great teaching requires today. For administrators, it’s a reminder to not only search for teachers like this when hiring, but to also to empower your current teachers to think like this, as well as give them the resources and time to become Amazing Teachers. My Amazing Teachers By Dr. Christiana Jurgensen Each year, as recruiting season gets under way, I am asked to write recommendation letters for teachers who have decided to try their luck in the international teaching world. Some are easy to write, making it hard to fit the words on the preferred page size. Other are a struggle, and I think have to reflect over the year to think of noteworthy things to include in an otherwise form-like letter. What makes the difference between a fine teacher and an amazing teacher? Here are some of the trends I have noticed in my experience over the years. When I walk into the classroom of an outstanding teacher, the kids are not seated quietly at their desks. Instead they are working in groups, reading on a pillow, asking the teacher a question, or taking it upon themselves to find the resources they need to complete the task at hand. To take that a step further, in the very amazing classes, most students are not even working on the same...
by andrew@learnedleadership.org | Mar 19, 2012 | Blog, Education, Teacher's Corner
Last week during my interview with Dr. Dick Krajczar he stated that school leaders need to envision what classrooms and schools will be like in 2030. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, but still have few answers about what my 8 month old daughter’s classes should look like in 18 years. As I think about it from the perspective of a teacher I think how depressing it would be if 18 years from now I was doing the same things in my classes. This is not to say that innovation requires us to throw out everything we’re doing now for some flashy new techno-classroom of the future. In fact I often hear a lot being said about schools integrating technology into the classroom. Often evidence of this is that the school has LCD projectors in every classroom. How is this much different from the modern day equivalent of the overhead projector? I know what you’re going to say, “overhead projectors can’t show clips from youtube.” Valid point, but an iPhone in the hands of my 83 year old grandma is pretty much just a phone and although we talk-up the use of technology at our campuses, its frequency of use is often generational. So toss out the old teachers, right? The other day I pulled out much of my hair trying to explain to some “older” teachers how to use googledocs and was amazed to find out that one of our teachers was unaware that if you double-click on a file it will open automatically, which she remarked is much faster than highlighting and selecting open from...
by andrew@learnedleadership.org | Mar 11, 2012 | Blog, Teacher's Corner, Video
I’m beginning to see that we are living at the edge of a very unusual time in education. My students helped me discover this today by introducing me to a documentary on Joseph Kony the Ugandan warlord. By now you may have heard of the Kony 2012 campaign designed by the US based non-profit Invisible Children (If not I’ll post the documentary at the bottom). Since the videos initial release, just earlier this week, over 60 million people have viewed it. Suddenly students who were never interested in Central African war atrocities want to discuss and learn more about the topic. No doubt this is partly due to the nature of the story but it’s also a testimony to the effectiveness of clever branding and brilliant marketing. Over the last few years there has been a steady increase of viral marketing and attempts to raise awareness through social media, but none have seemed as layered and effective as the Kony 2012 campaign. So how does this relate to education? As I watched the inspiration rise in my students as we discussed this topic I see an opportunity to capitalize on their motivation. In fact it seems more and more normal for my students to be keen marketing commentators. I’d like to follow their motivation and see where we end up, but there’s one big problem, this is IB history and May exams are right around the corner. So instead of harnessing my student’s ambition and seeing where it takes us I have to get my students ready to be assessed. Anyone who teaches 12th graders in the spring knows...
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