You gotta feel the love for Learning Targets..

Our love affair with learning targets has been going on for more than 3 years at Waukesha North High School, but now is a good time to check yourself. Are you really using learning targets to help students aim for understanding?

The book, Learning Targets, by Moss and Brookhart was a good reminder of just how important it is to establish a learning target theory of action in our schools. There is no dispute that the most effective teaching and the most meaningful student learning happen when teachers design the right learning target for today's lesson and use it along with their students to aim for and assess understanding.

Do you post a learning target to be compliant? Or do you truly believe in the power of your learning targets to guide learning and help raise student achievement?

Sharing learning targets with students means more than simply writing the target on the board or stating the target at the beginning of the lesson. It must be embedded throughout the lesson. Students need the learning targets so they know what they are supposed to learn, a performance of understanding that makes that target visible, and clear criteria for success so they can assess their progress in reaching the desired targets.

Every step of instruction and formative assessment should be grounded in a learning target.

If learning targets haven't become the lifeline and the centerpiece of everything your students are learning, receiving feedback on, and showing they know it through their assessment performances...than you better figure out, how to become re-connected to your learning targets.
You gotta feel the love for learning targets, our students successful future depends on it!

Check out my first Animoto- 2012

If you had 35 seconds to create your "elevator message", what would it look like?
Click on the 2012 link below and then create yours.

2012

Unsustainable

My latest book was recommended by a colleague from Kettle Moraine who said, Unsustainable by Tim McDonald, is a must-read for school staff. This book is all about ways we need to rethink schooling.

Innovation is necessary in a changing world and schools are no different. So, how can we redesign the system to meet our students' needs? Where are our growth opportunities?

It is during these times of innovative disruption that we can get the needle to really move. The process starts by creating a physical place where people can continually work on ways to better teach and learn, incorporate new technology, and improve productivity. Can you see evidence of this at the Purple Palace?


The traditional school of 1974 (when North was built) is unable to differentiate pace, content, or type of learning. The mode of production is still batch process, necessitating uniformity. And with few exceptions, uniformity is mediocrity. Our system has now hit a wall. Productivity is capped at the capacity of you as the teacher, to present information and engage students.

If we are going to improve the quality of education at North, learning MUST become much more personalized. Student labor is a tremendously underused resource in our schools. Why is that?

Conventional school seems like a school bus rolling along the highway, with the teacher standing at the front and pointing out interesting and important sights but telling the passengers that, no, we cannot let you get off to explore what's down that side road. Students who want to pursue their interests and passions must do so on their own time and energy, if they have any left. How can we rethink ways in which North can involve students in more student-driven learning?

Teachers, you are the true agents of change! As human beings, we like to choose pace, content, and style of learning. Yet we tell students to sit in desks, be quiet and behave, and take what is given to them- with no regard for their interests, capacities, or passions. When we say "follow your passions", do we really mean it?

Systems of learning...Are you helping to move the dial?

When the bell rings for class, what are your students doing? Are they immediately engaged in a setting where they drive the learning environment? Do they wait for the adult in the room to squeeze the knowledge deep down into their brains and wait to be directed by the teacher?

Ryan Krohn came to visit us on Friday and we peeked into classrooms from 9-9:20 just to see this very thing. In a 30 second check, the classroom would get 1 point if students were up and working together or up and doing something hands on. The classroom would get no point if the students were sitting and listening to the teacher talk. North scored a 1 out of 23 for that snapshot.

Do we have a sense of urgency here? Think about the importance of having one shot to create that hook for your students and to get them immediately interested in the learning.

Kickoffs! Like bell work (sounds boring)...kickoffs (Go Badgers!) are the first order of business in every classroom, every period. They consist of a 3-7 minute, instant mini-lesson that focuses directly on areas of need according to our school data. What if students knew in every class, to look for the kick-off as soon as they enter every classroom at the beginning of each period? What if students controlled what this looked like instead of the teacher? Students immediately conducting student-led kickoffs.

Would kick-offs get us into the playoffs at Waukesha North?

Think about how we can make all our students winners! Take a step back...and allow our students to help us....move the dial.

Assignments Matter

The North leadership team just finished reading, Assignments Matter-Making the connections that help students meet standards, by Eleanor Dougherty. I believe it is true that students can do no better than the assignments they are given. Quality assignments are the hallmark of effective instruction. How can we get our students to achieve to new levels? One way is through the PLC challenge!

We know that effective teaching sets high expectations. How do your assignments become the centerpieces for demanding and interesting learning experiences? Dougherty says the must-have features of an assignment include: a prompt, a product, and a rubric. Do your assignments pass this test?

In order to raise student achievement, we must raise our expectations. Dougherty says, "If you believe in equality of instruction, you will be tenacious in finding instructional practices and supports to ensure students engage in rigorous assignments that prepare them to participate in and contribute to a society that values ideas, literacy, and critical thinking." Keep pushing our students to take responsibility for their own learning as often as appropriate.

Teaching assignments that connect students to the world outside of school is one of our best weapons against the apathy and boredom many students feel when they are confined to a classroom, where learning may seem irrelevant and tiresome. Work together to meaningfully connect learning for students. The payoff for you as the teacher will be very rewarding and your students are apt to feel more inspired as learners.

Midwest Google Apps Summit

I just spent 2 days at the Midwest Google Apps Summit (#mwgs for our Twitter friends) with an amazing group of innovative educators! I was feeling pretty good the first day. I learned just enough new information to feel empowered and ready to do some damage. Day two, after the third session mid-day, I had hit the Google wall and was sitting in sessions with a glazed look that had overcome my mind and body and my head was swimming!

I have included the link below to the summit website with all the presentation topics. Let me warn you, you could spend months looking at all of this, but there are some outstanding resources that I wanted to share with you.

https://sites.google.com/site/gapsmidwestsummit/

I will end with a quote from Lou Holtz here, "If you are bored with life, if you don't get up every morning with a burning desire to do things- you don't have enough goals".  Burning Google desire...

Practice Perfect

I enjoyed reading Doug Lemov's first book so much, Teach Like a Champion, that I thought I would check out his book, Practice Perfect. Plus, how can you really pass up something that proclaims to give you 42 rules for getting better at getting better.

Doug talks a lot about what great teachers do in the classroom. Great teachers are obsessed with how efficiently they use time in the classroom. Great teachers ask questions that are artful and strategic. Great teachers listen, reflect, and discuss. What makes you a great teacher? Let me help you answer that...

The One World School House

If you have been following the social media loops, you will know that Salman Khan, has stirred up quite a bit of controversy with his new book, "The One World School House--Education Re-imagined".

This book is sure to make you think differently about the conventional way we go about education.

Khan says that active learning, owned learning, begins with giving each student the freedom to determine where and when the learning will occur. It's a case of one-size-fits-few. Isn't this our preference still, as adults?

What level of application and understanding should we expect from our students? Do we encourage our students to go farther and deeper in their learning? Does learning start and stop at the bell? If you give students the opportunity to learn deeply and to see the magic of the universe around them, almost everyone will be motivated.

I encourage all of you to focus on the connections and the continuity among concepts across all subjects. 

PLC challenge! Lessons aimed at interrelated concepts, would match the way our brains are actually wired, and would prepare our students to function in a complex world where good enough...no longer is.

Our world...and North HS...needs bold thinking and innovative approaches. I lean on you...for new ideas!

Have a great week Northstars! Innovate....challenge the status quo...and ask yourself...is what we are providing, the most high-quality education our students need and want?