Weekly Coaching Communication
Make it a great day -- every day!
13 - 17 February 2017
On the Standards Front . . .
Guiding Questions
Knight encourages that guiding questions are of great importance:
- Guiding questions improve teaching through preparation
- Guiding questions put learning ahead of activities
- Guiding questions place proper emphasis on most important content
- Guiding questions provide a learning target for students
- Guiding questions support formative assessment
- Guiding questions support differentiated instruction
To create guiding questions, Knight provides a checklist, which bears some semblance to the process we have used to unwrap standards and write learning targets for proficency scales, as well as some good advice for planning practice and formative assessment:
- Address the standards
- Identify the knowledge students need to learn
- Identify the skills students need to learn
- Identify the big ideas students need to learn
- Choose meaningful or important topics
- Choose personally relevant topics
- Use the most appropriate words
- Keep language simple to understand
- Prompt students to use learning strategies
- Prompt students to use technology
- Prompt students to use communication skills
If you are interested in learning more about guided questions or other aspects from Knight's book, please let me know -- I have a second copy to check out to staff.
Transforming School from Performance to Learning
Eduardo Briceño leads Mindset Works, which helps people develop as motivated and effective learners through training and resources to foster growth mindset beliefs and behaviors. He co-founded Mindset Works in 2007 with the foremost growth mindset researcher, Carol Dweck Ph.D., and education expert Lisa Blackwell Ph.D.
Briceño regularly speaks at national and international conferences and events, as well as at companies and learning institutions. His first TEDx Talk, "The power of belief," is widely used to train teachers, students and professionals on growth mindset beliefs and behaviors, and his TED Talk, "How to get better at the things you care about," differentiates performance vs. improvement behaviors.
This truncated blog is from the 02 February 2017 article "Transforming School from Performance to Learning," on MindsetWorks.
Most parents, teachers, and schools encourage students to perform as best as they can, but it turns out that a focus on performance can hinder learning, improvement, and, ironically, performance.
When great sports teams play championship games, they are in their Performance Zone, but during their regular practice, they are in their Learning Zone. During concerts elite musicians display what they've mastered, but when they practice they focus on what they have yet to learn. In any domain, it is the time spent in the Learning Zone that leads to significant improvement.
In a recent workshop, I surveyed educators on whether they thought students regarded school as a Learning Zone or a Performance Zone. Seventy-nine percent reported that students perceived school as either "mostly a performance zone" or a "strong performance zone." When we ask students, we see similar results. If students see school as a place to show what they already know and minimize mistakes, rather than as a place to focus on what they don't know, how are they going to substantially learn and improve?
Inadvertently, students learn that school is a Performance Zone from adults. Under pressure to cover content broadly rather than deeply, teachers are often eager to quickly get to the correct answers so that the class can move on to the next topic, rather than also to uncover and examine mistakes, confusions, and diverse perspectives to learn from them. Consequently, students quickly realize that they're expected to speak up only when they know the right answer, which encourages them to focus on what they already know rather than on their questions or confusions they have. They also sense that peers, teachers, and parents will think highly of them only when they do something correctly, leading them to fear and avoid truly challenging themselves to learn new skills. Students also often notice that their homework and in-class work often gets evaluated for correctness with a grade, rather than being used to provide substantive skill-related feedback they can learn from, which conveys the message that school is a place to perform. Finally, they also often notice that most teachers, parents, and other adults spend almost all of their time in the Performance Zone, which they then emulate. If we want children to become lifelong learners, we have to model being learners ourselves.
In the growth mindset workshops and writings I lead with colleagues, we sometimes unintentionally give the impression that people should spend all of their time in the Learning Zone. However, the Performance Zone has a place in our lives, work, and schools. It is what allows us to get things done to the best of our ability. When the stakes are high, such as when we're building a bridge or operating a surgery, we want to be in our Performance Zone so that we can accomplish those tasks as correctly as possible. But being in the Performance Zone all of the time hinders not only our growth, but ironically, over the long term, also our performance. The more time we spend in the Learning Zone, the more we improve.
Whether it is in our schools, homes, or workplaces, we can encourage more time in the Learning Zone by acknowledging the value of each zone and reflecting on when we want to focus on improvement vs. performance. We thereby gain clarity on what we mean by success, how we can best pursue it, and what we need from one another to realize it.
Coaching Schedule -- see Google Calendar for specific "Busy" times **schedule subject to change**
LINK to Mr. Libolt's Weekly Calendar & Communication
Monday, 13 February
- 9:55 - 11:23 AM Observation & Co-Teaching
- Serve Teachers & Students
- Research & Resources
Tuesday, 14 February -- Happy Valentine's Day!
- 8:00 11:30 AM Literacy Leadership -- Strategies to Encourage Surface, Deep and Transfer of Learning
- 2:00 - 3:00 PM Jeremiah McGraw Visits
- Serve Teachers & Students
- Research & Resources
Wednesday, 15 February -- Data Team MTGs -- LATE START
- 12:30 - 1:30 PM IC/Principal MTG
- Serve Teachers & Students
- Research & Resources
Thursday, 16 February
- 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM Mtg with Erikka Vosmek, Kelly Jones, Dilyn McNeill & Admin for PL planning
- Serve Teachers & Students
- Research & Resources
Friday, 17 February @GWAEA all day
- LCI: Visible Learning for Literacy - Gradual Release of Responsibility
MONDAY, 20 FEBRUARY NO SCHOOL -- PRESIDENT's DAY
ARCHIVE LINKS
Click on the link to access 2015-16 prior weekly communications.
Pope's IC Weekly Communication Archive & Index 2016-17
Click on the link to access 2016-17 prior weekly communications.
IC/Principal Weekly Meeting Notes
Click on the link to view the Friday notes.
Contact Information
Center Point - Urbana CSD
Email: epopenhagen@cpuschools.org
Phone: 319-849-1102+91015
Twitter: @Epopenhagen