Using Creativity for Inspiration in the New Year

Over at National Blogging Collaborative, bloggers are encouraged to consider their "New Year's" resolution for the blog a month.

This fall marks the third year I've taught a course at the local university, and just as I did as a high school teacher, I took time over the summer to reflect on what worked and didn't work the previous time I taught the course, and I thought about how I want to improve. Naturally, I looked at course evaluations, weighed the recommendations from students, and considered what I know these young adults will face when they enter middle school classrooms as English language arts teachers.

On our first day of class last week, I asked the students to write about what English language arts means to them. What is it we teach when we teach students English language arts? While a couple of students focused on the skills they will teach (language, grammar, writing), many of the explanations also included thoughts on critical thinking, creativity, communication, and personal connections to text that create life-long readers. Our syllabus is full of ideas for what we will read, discuss, and learn. I vow to focus on what my students need.

Even as I help students learn what they need to learn, my "New Year's" resolution for the 2015-2016 academic year is to encourage more creativity in myself and my students and to help these future teachers understand the importance of creativity in teaching middle school students.

Inspired by my reading of Transforming Schools Using Project-Based Learning, Performance Assessment, and Common Core Standards by Bob Lenz, Justin Wells, and Sally Kingston and a recent phone conversation with Justin, I am resolving to make this year better and more creative than the last. We will focus on creativity and all the non creative acts required for us to be creative. We will focus on deeper learning, more authentic assessment, and engaging learning.

"...for learning to be meaningful and long lasting, it should culminate in the creation of something that never existed before."

"...creativity is what excites and engages us, forging an emotional connection to our learning that is as critical to the process as the content of learning itself."

~~quotes from the book by Lenz, Wells, and Kingston~~

What about you? Do you have plans to be creative this academic year? To encourage creativity in yourself and your students? Do share your ideas, please!

Performance Based Assessment in Action

Schools across the country are administering final exams this week, and I am wondering how many of those final assessments are copy cats of the state standardized tests students will take in the spring and how many are more performance based, allowing students to demonstrate what they learned without filling in bubbles on a sheet.

Critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity are generally some of the first items tossed out the window when we think about assessment, but I believe it’s possible to create assessments that include these important attributes.  I’m not talking about traditional bubble assessments here, obviously.  Rather, I’m advocating for more performance based assessments where students can demonstrate learning and mastery of both content and skills and do it all in a more collaborative and supportive environment.

Early last week, I served as a reviewer of student performance assessments in a rural school about an hour away from where I live. I always jump on opportunities to be in schools and to see students in action.  This particular opportunity was even more delightful because it addressed another issue about which I care deeply—assessment (and doing assessment right). Part of my job involves serving on a state work group for performance based assessment, and we are looking at schools piloting Performance Based Assessments (PBA) and also thinking about how to encourage more PBA statewide.  

Some of my favorite PBA examples are interdisciplinary, allowing students to demonstrate their learning for more than one subject at a time.  What I observed last week was an assessment where students demonstrated their understanding of social studies/geography standards and concepts as well as their understanding of English language arts standards.  Eleven year-olds were articulate, thoughtful, knowledgeable, and creative.  Since the beginning of the school year, the young students had been learning what they needed to know to be prepared for their performance event.  This learning, obviously, happened in ways that moved beyond skill and drill/worksheet completion and lower level thinking.  To be prepared for their performance assessments, these eleven year-olds had to speak well, listen to others, collaborate with teammates, research, read, write, and create.

Meeting the students

While I don’t know the tiny little details that happened before I met the students, I do know what they shared with me.  Students were asked to research a different country (the group I worked with had researched Afghanistan), sixth grade students worked in teams of 3-4 to create their own country complete with its own name, geographical coordinates, country, culture, etc.  The bulk of sixth grade social studies standards in Kentucky currently focus on geography—hence this particular assignment.  Their social studies and English teachers worked together to plan lessons that addressed the various components of the project, with the research and writing skills being a focus in ELA class, and the content/geography work happening in social studies class.  They also had to write a paper that created an argument for which country was better and why—the country they researched or their made-up county.  They collaboratively wrote and edited the paper before bringing it to the presentation.  The students were very honest with us about how difficult it was to work in a group; they said at first they argued a lot about their made-up country, and their teacher worked with them on team building skills and helped them understand the importance of collaborating and creating the project together.  

Had they not so honestly told us how they struggled at first to get along, we never would have known.  The day of their presentation, they were united with a plan and presented as a team, supporting one another when another team member faltered.  The day of the presentations, students entered the library carrying a hand created map, their argumentative paper, and their confidence.  We asked students questions about each step of their research process, about their countries (both the one they researched and the one they created).  We also asked them on the spot, to apply knowledge about geographical content to present day situations. For example, we asked students to read a world map, read charts, graphs, and tables and then answer our questions which included lots of inferencing so students had to tell us why they interpreted the map in a particular manner.  

Overall, I was very impressed with the process and the end result, and knowing the school, they will continue to refine the process based on this experience. What's remarkable to note is that this wasn't just the teachers deciding to implement performance based assessments in their own classrooms.  This was school-wide performance based assessments for all courses.  Imagine the impact on learning and teaching when the focus of school-wide assessment is performance based!  I look forward to returning in the spring when they assess students over mathematics and science content in a similar performance based fashion.

Why I Left Teaching

Yesterday I had an opportunity to interview students while on a visit to a high school in the eastern region of Kentucky. My colleague and I asked a number of questions to capture a snapshot of life for students at this high school. The students were very impressive, and they praised their teachers for providing challenging course work. They mentioned the research papers being written for English class; they emphasized the literature they are reading (Heart of Darkness); they conveyed the importance of studying literature to “better understand people.” They talked about the pig they were dissecting in science class and the challenging work required in pre-calculus.

 Following the interview with students and the subsequent conversation with our team, another colleague asked me: “Why did you leave the classroom— It’s clear you are passionate about teaching?” Coincidentally, I have been asking myself the same question and was even preparing a blog post on the topic a couple of days before her question. So, why did I leave the classroom?   Difficult to answer but important to ponder (and I ponder it often).

What I love about teaching

 Interacting with students
 Helping students make connections in learning
 Advising students about life after high school
 Designing and delivering engaging and effective instruction
 Collaborating with colleagues in other disciplines
 Establishing a positive and safe classroom with high expectations for all
 Coaching, mentoring, and learning with new teachers
 Reflecting and refining the art of teaching and learning

 What I don't love about teaching

 Lack of respect for profession
 Pressure to practice for “the test”
 Hoards of papers to grade
 Lack of time to plan, grade, meet with parents
 Rigid daily schedule (no time to sit, eat, use the toilet, attend events for sons)
 Constant interruptions of instruction from outside sources (walk-throughs, intercom requests for   students, etc.)
 Lack of funding for attending professional conferences and other events that invigorate
 Lack of time to spend with my own children because I spent so much time with my “other kids”

 No one item had any more impact on my decision to leave than another item, but after eleven years, I grew weary and needed a change. I certainly never thought leaving the classroom was a permanent choice, just an opportunity to try something new in the field of education for a few years.  I’m often asked if I will ever return to the public school classroom. It’s hard to say, but with many of the impending changes in public education I don’t imagine my list of what’s tough in teaching will become any shorter. That’s why I persist with a commitment made to myself when I left—I aim to raise the voice of teachers and students in public education.