What you see is what you get - literally

This is a very well known optical illusion - it seems that everyone has seen it.  Everyone knows that it is either two faces or a vase.  Wrong.  It is both. It is two faces and it is a vase - but you can’t see them at the same time.  It is a classic demonstration of attention equals perception - we see what we are looking for.

Over time, we tend to wear lens’ that frame our vision, that shape our perceptions. We  learn from experience and form our world view according to those experiences.  However, once our world view is established the reverse seems to happen - our expectations and beliefs  actually shape our perceptions;  in other words, we see what we expect to see. Literally.  No less a figure then Einstein wrote about this - and he believed that we not only tend to see what we expect to see but that we ignore what doesn’t fit our expectations.   This holds true, not only for psychological perceptions - but also for our physical bodies. What we think determines what we feel.

For educators this is significant. We’ve all heard studies of self-fulfilling prophecies where teacher expectations predict student achievements.  (Strangely enough we tend to recognise this as a theoretical consideration but rarely seem to acknowledge it in our own practice.)  In short - we tend to see a child as a slow-learner, smart, a behaviour problem...and ‘lo and behold the child performs to our expectations.  The child who is perceived to be a behaviour problem tends to become a behaviour problem,  or at least is perceived to be one.  Perception does indeed become reality.

This means that children may become locked into our version of  reality … which in turn becomes their own. Our view of students may become their version of themselves.

Perhaps an answer is in training ourselves to look for the things that surprise us, for the things that don’t follow a pattern or meet our expectations.  We need to train ourselves to see what is really happening rather than think in mental cliches.  In practice this is not as easy as it seems.  The notion of  observing students, really observing, is important.  Perhaps the increasingly popular notion of the “focus child” offers some help.  During this time, as well as learning the strengths and areas for further development, perhaps teachers should try to discover something that surprises them about the student, to find out something that they did not know about the child, to take the chance to remind themselves that this student is also a person.

When we approach our students with a deficit model we limit our perceptions to what they can’t do.  Shifting our focus to what they can do, perhaps adopting a strength based approach, and helping them to build on that might just provide  the shift in emphasis that is needed to re-engage those students who can’t see any relevance or purpose in schooling.

It’s an idea worth looking at.

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Related posts dealing with “The more I practice the luckier I get - Mindset and Carol Dweck”  and another dealing with the importance of attitude - “The second most important word in education” may also be of interest.

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Credits:
Links are active and go to the appropriate sites.
Image via Google images: http://s2.hubimg.com/u/2012669_f260.jpg

A modern problem meets ancient wisdom?

I’ve been puzzling on reconciling what the research says about motivation and how to enact it at my workplace.  For this I am indebted to the work of Dan Pink and his book “Drive”.  For those not familiar with the book I’d suggest you can get a more than adequate overview from this RSA animation of his TED talk.




Pink identifies three prime motivators - autonomy, mastery and purpose.  
Purpose.
Teachers should have little trouble with a sense of purpose; surely the profession is one of the most noble and worthy of all?  If a teacher doesn’t feel a sense of purpose then perhaps he or she is in the wrong job.
Mastery
The desire to master a task is also easily embedded within teaching.  Who can honestly say that they can not improve their practice? Who can not improve their ICT skills, or their questioning ability, or the inclusiveness of their lessons? Teachers have almost limitless opportunities to improve their practice - and the day when they believe otherwise is the day they are in the wrong job.
Autonomy?
Autonomy, however, creates some issues for schools. How do we grant teachers genuine autonomy in an environment of regulation, mandated assessment, school wide procedures and protocols that dictate the shape of lessons and learning experiences?   A common response is to say that staff are consulted and included in new school initiatives but then adherence and a common response is required. This is often seen as acceptable since the staff had the input into the decision making process.  But is this “input” enough - or even real?

The economic realities of life are such that most teachers need a job - and disagreeing with the administration of a school can require real strength of character - and perhaps tenure. I recall being at meetings where principals have discussed using “guided democracy” to get the staff to make the decision that they wanted. I recall countless planning meetings designed to shift teacher understanding to where school management believed teachers needed to be.  In short, staff meetings can be subtly directed to arrive at the destination that the leadership wants. However, such processes only produce superficial compliance; genuine commitment to the concepts being discussed is often lacking.

All of this leads us to a situation where the scope for teachers having significant autonomy is limited.  Increasingly teachers have little control over the content of what they teach - and the process by which they teach can also be either “guided” or mandated.  Which means that teachers end up with minimal genuine autonomy.

Yet how can it be otherwise? Effective schools are more than a series of classrooms sharing the same building. A common framework allows  schools to operate in a coordinated manner, to structure activities in a way that allows efficient teaching.  A common approach in many areas is not only sensible but essential. So, schools with clear direction regarding curriculum content and a commitment to “best practice” methods are understandable - in fact, desirable.  Where does this leave teacher autonomy?

Good schools need structure...but passionate teachers need a degree of autonomy.

This is where shared vision becomes essential - not a veneer, not an engineered process with a pre-determined outcome, not merely a collection of protocols..  Teachers who share the vision of the school will feel more control over their efforts. In schools with a shared vision and mindset teachers will have a sense of autonomy - they will feel as if they are working towards goals and objectives that they themselves value.  The fact that the teacher in the next classroom is making the same decisions will be insignificant, for each will be working towards achieving their goals.

When schools do not really listen we end up with a mismatch in vision between the school and at least some of the teachers who teach there. If Daniel Pink is right, this will lead to teachers not feeling in control of their actions, to teachers who lack a sense of autonomy.  And a lack of autonomy leads to a decrease in “drive”.  In the school context this manifests as mediocrity, of minimum standards rather than striving for excellence.Surely this leads school management with a paradox? To create group consensus  we need to genuinely listen to the voices of the individuals within that group. We need to establish our shared values, we need to be clear about our shared vision - for these things guide the fundamental direction and actions of the school.  It is the values and aspirations of the teachers who drive classrooms.  If we want teachers with drive we need teachers with vision - a vision they truly share with other teachers in the school.

Creating a situation where teachers can drive their own classroom in the direction that the system dictates is a challenging task for educational administrators. It reminds me of the adage taken from ancient spiritual leader Lao Tzu; “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

Then we will have teachers with "drive".

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Credits:
RSA Animate version of Pink's TED talk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=player_embedded
Lao Tzu image: Google Graphics

The most important sticky note you'll ever read?

I came across this video the other day -  a “feel good” effort with a twist at the end that I won’t spoil - all is revealed in the clip.

Video from KarmaTube


It occurs to me that this clip has implications beyond the relatively narrow focus of the target audience. So what relevance has this video to broader aspects of education?  There are several messages really - one is that  education requires open and genuine communication.  As teachers we need to listen to our students as much as we talk to them - if not more.

Another is that this relationship needed time to develop - the relationship could not blossom until there was a degree of trust.  Again, there is a message there for teachers.

But watching this reminded me of one of my favourite quotations which is attributed to Dr. James Comer;  “There is no significant learning without a significant relationship”.  Put simply, if we want our students to learn from us we need to spend the time to develop genuine relationships with them. How we do this is up to each teacher as an individual - for we too have our own personalities, interests and foibles. However,  unless we take the time to value our students they will not value us - or what we are trying to share with them.

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Dr. James Comer is more than a source of an inspirational quotation.  He has developed the Comer School Development program as a vehicle for school reform.  An interview with Dr. Comer can be accessed here.

Herding cats in the classroom?

Teaching is a challenging activity.  Keeping track of a class of students who are operating at a range of different ability levels, often from vastly different socio-economic backgrounds, catering for a range of learning needs, dealing with any individual health issues class members may have, managing the administrative requirements of your school or system, attempting to match curriculum requirements to the needs of students in the class, dealing with “helicopter parents” or, even worse, parents who are as insubstantial as the abominable snowman, acting as a part of a team when your specific class requires focused and immediate attention, trying to make your lessons as interesting and engaging as possible...it takes a special type of person to do it well.
It is not unlike herding cats.



One thing we know about cats is that is easier to get them to come to you than to make them go somewhere that they don’t want to go.  With cats this is easy - entice them with food.  Although we do not bribe students via their taste buds we can learn from this approach - efforts put into developing student motivation is an important aspect of effective teaching. Structuring the educational environment to get students interested and wanting to learn through engaging and challenging activities where they value the outcomes of their efforts and feel secure as they explore their boundaries changes the educational process from that of herding cats to managing learning.
If teachers feel as if they are herding cats in the classroom it might be worth looking at what is on offer. Motivated people, even young ones, don’t need to be herded; they drive themselves.  The challenge for teachers is to guide student interest in ways that reflect the outcome requirements of the curriculum. And that is far from easy.  There are many sites and blogs offering advice or guidance in this area - a brief but worthy offering can be found here.
One important aspect of effective education is often overlooked however. Teacher reflection is an important part of becoming an expert practitioner.  Teachers need to find the time to think about what is going on in their classrooms and their educational practice - this is as important as thinking about the response of students to lessons. How else can areas for improvement be identified? Reflection is not a luxury, it is an essential part of personal professional development and adaptation.
For some personal reflection needs to be done alone - perhaps over a coffee whilst appearing to stare out the window. Others need guidance and stimulation.  Technology may come to the rescue for those in this category. Apple’s Itunes “university” section has FREE lectures on a variety of educational issues and subject areas while Harvard also offers free podcasts on educational issues.  Podcasts can be thought provoking ways to stimulate reflection - and can be absorbed during the daily commute.

To paraphrase Margaret J. Wheatley, reflection “...is not just a nice thing to do if you have the time. It is the only way you can survive.”

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Credits:
video = commercial from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8
Embedded link via Larry Ferlazzo at Education Week.
Harvard and Itunes links go to original sources.
Margaret Wheatley link goes to source.

Mathematical engagement - images to delight, ignite and excite

Let’s be honest about this - in some classrooms the teaching of mathematics is as dry the Sahara Desert - and perceived to be as endless by many students. As a result engagement is lower than we would like. This is significant since student engagement is correlated to student success.

Whilst this statement is almost self evident we should be wary of accepting such comments unreservedly - evidence based practice requires that we support our beliefs.  Fortunately this is easy to do.  Any number of studies have endorsed this notion that engagement enhances achievement.   

With this strongly established the next issue is how to generate engagement? Jill Fielding-Wells and Kellie Makar of the University of Queensland found that “Research indicates  that student motivation and engagement are increased if instruction is authentic and relevant...”  Authentic here was defined as that which was cognitively challenging and connected to the world beyond the classroom.  The study found that student engagement could be improved by up to 22% by shifting to inquiry based problem solving as the method of instruction.

For those comfortable with a less  academic but equally authentic anecdotal style there is this piece showing how a high school in the USA significantly improved results in mathematics by introducing a curriculum based around problem solving with an emphasis on generating student engagement - the percentage of students “passing” mathematics skyrocketed from an admittedly low 20% to 60%.   There is thus both academic and “real world” evidence  that engagement is linked to achievement and that engagement can be increased by including certain features into  learning experiences.     In terms of student engagement generally,  it has been found that student engagement is enhanced when students are interested, challenged and feel that the work / task is important.

Several educational reformers,   such as the teams at the Apple Classroom of Tomorrow Today and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, also advocate the increased and improved use of technology and multimedia in our classrooms to enhance both engagement and learning.

Fortunately the Internet is a rich source of motivational material.  Presenting clips such as the following could be one way of increasing interest and engagement in mathematics lessons.

The following are samples of video that could both ignite interest and engagement.

Ma and Pa Kettle Math.

While it is not the intent of this post to provide lesson plans I would suggest that this video cries out for “unpacking”.  Why do the flawed approaches used here produce the correct answer? Does this approach always “work? Are there other numbers that could be substituted for the numbers in the clip? How might Ma and Pa Kettle be convinced that their techniques are, in fact, wrong?

Pattern blocks


Even very young children could benefit from video enhanced lessons. After watching this clip an obvious question might be “Who would like to create their own version of this?”  Given that this is created via the  “stop motion” technique a simple digital camera and one of the many free video creation programs is all that would be created to really involve the students.  


LEAF TESSELATION

As well as being fascinating viewing this clip dealing with leaf tessellation lends itself to further investigation of the topic. ( Instructions for making non-regular tessellating shapes abound on the Internet - here’s one - and every free drawing package on the Internet or buried within operating systems has the capability of creating them.)
NATURE BY NUMBERS

Older students could unpack just some of the elements of this wonderful video.  I’d suggest that if students were able to identify and explain all the concepts embedded in this engrossing video then their mathematical knowledge would be well beyond the norm - and the beauty of it is, in order to do so, some reasonably advanced teaching and learning would be required.  


The Internet is a rich source of such videos.  There is clearly scope for including web based video into our mathematics classrooms - especially as motivators at the early stage of projects. The use of such images is one way that we can delight,  ignite and excite our students - or at least increase engagement.




Those who found these videos interesting and can see a place for them in their practice might also enjoy an earlier post with a similar collection of clips here.

Those who are interested in using such images but would like some guidance on how they might be included meaningfully into a classroom project might find this post on Project Based Learning useful.



Acknowledgements:
All links go to original sources of documents.
Image: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/27/stella_2.gif

Tesselating shapes PPt;

www.curriculumpress.edu.au/sample/pages/tessellated_shapes.ppt