Why Feeling Heard Is An Essential Outcome Of A Trusting Culture

The fourth word for this month’s blog series is… Heard.  That feeling of being heard is one of the essential outcomes of a trusting culture. This became very clear to me when, as a Superintendent, I was faced with a wide range of stakeholders who were very willing to share their own opinions, questions, concerns, fears, and anger over decisions the district team were making around masking, social distancing, transgender students, equity, …all of the topics that have been on the burning edge of discussions over the past 5 years. One approach that I have used to lower the temperature in these heated confrontations is to take time to listen with empathy, and ask questions from a lens of curiosity. This is hard to do. Especially when the stakeholder questions and opinions reflect misconceptions and misinformation or the conversation feels like a personal attack.  “Talk to the hand”  may feel like a more satisfying response,  it will most certainly shut doors, and will absolutely not solve problems. Instead, when possible, flip the situation so that the individuals walk away feeling heard.  Find a time to sit down face to face to talk, especially with a leading voice who will take the conversation back to others.  Let them talk. Be empathetic. Ask clarifying questions. As much as you want to jump in and refute what they are saying, solve a problem, or correct a misstatement, don’t interrupt. Take notes instead. Follow up with phrases like, “Would you be willing to connect some dots for me and help me to see how you landed where you are?”, and, “Would you be open to hearing how I connected the dots to land on this decision?” Thank them for taking time to talk with you. The goal is for them to feel like you worked to see the situation from their perspective, reflected on their concerns, and found some common ground with them (usually this is the fact that we all want what is best for students). Sometimes this is all they really want and they may shift their focus elsewhere. Sometimes, even though they may still not agree, they may have an increased level of trust in you and will tell that to others.  While they don’t agree on one decision, they may be more open to trusting other decisions in the future.

How do we ensure that our students and staff feel heard? What actions do we take to make space for students to share their lived experiences? How do students see these reflected in their instructional materials and classwork? When students are passionate about an issue, do we have a system in place that they can use to act on that passion within the safe space of our schools? I think about the student leaders who approached the school administration with their plan for a peaceful walkout to protest gun violence in schools.  They felt heard by the administration, who listened to their concerns and their plan, asked questions to better understand the beliefs and experience of the students, then made sure that the students had a safe space to hold the demonstration. I think about the classrooms where students are heard, so they feel safe to share their thinking with their classmates and teachers who listen, ask questions and work together to make sure everyone is included in the learning. I think about teacher teams who have implemented effective PBIS systems because they took the time to really hear each other, their students, and the voices of community partners.  I think about the district transportation team who felt heard in past discussions with the administration, as a result, felt confident as valued members of the district team, and proposed an idea for a Little Free Library by the bus garage, housed in a little bus, complete with student designed bus safety bookmarks. Prioritizing hearing over listening can empower everyone within your sphere of influence and expand your own capacity as a leader - in your classroom, building or district.

I created a set of guiding questions to to start your reflection on your ability to ensure others feel heard:

• How often do I actively try to understand the emotions and perspectives of those I lead?

• What does it look like when I make a conscious effort to see situations from their point of view?

• What helps me to refrain from interrupting and allow individuals to express themselves fully?

• How am I aware of the impact of my non-verbal cues on the perception of being heard?

• How frequently do I paraphrase or summarize what others have shared to ensure understanding?

• How often do I use open-ended questions to explore the thoughts and feelings of others?

• When do I create a safe space where individuals feel accepted and free to express themselves?

• How do I highlight and leverage the strengths and resilience of individuals on my team?

• How do I perceive the impact of my communication on the relationships within the team or my classroom?

Resources To Spark Your Thinking

• Two Ways To Help Your Team Members Feel Heard - Greater Good Magazine UC Berkeley

• 7 Ways To Make Employees Feel Respected According To Research - Harvard Business Review

• 6 Small But Mighty Ways To Make Your Students Feel Important - Edutopia

• 6 Ways To Improve Your Listening Skills - Harvard Business Education

• Great Educators Are Active Listeners- How to Help Your Students Feel Heard - Scanlan Center For School Mental Health (Univ of Iowa)

Tools To Add To Your Toolbox:

• Literacy and Math walkthrough tools https://www.learnwithsap.org/ (Achievethecore.org)

• World Knowledge Expert Tasks - https://www.learnwithsap.org/peersandpedagogy/world-knowledge-companion-text-sets-empowering-educators-and-inspiring-students-through-literacy/ 

• Doug Reeve’s ASCD blog post on Systems Thinking https://www.ascd.org/blogs/lets-stop-treating-achievement-discipline-and-attendance-as-separate 

Happy Holidays to all of you!  I hope you take time during the winter break to do things that bring you joy, reconnect with family and friends, read the books that have been piling up next to your chair, and remember that you are making a positive difference in the lives of all the children that you support through your work.

Talk-OH-Tuesday will be taking a break too - and will return on January 9, 2024!

What Do We Value In Education?

Throughout this month, I have been reflecting on a different word each week. This week’s word is Value.  What do we value as educators? And how do our actions support this?  I think this is a particularly important discussion to have around how we value learning.  Do we value the outcome, the process or both? Intrinsically as educators, we would say that the process of learning should, at the very least, be equal in value to the outcome.  If this is true, then what message do we send to students when we place greater point values, weight or emphasis on the outcome? Or, when we place so much weight on the process, under the guise of, “If we don’t make the practice/drafts/ worth points they won’t do it”,  that even when students demonstrate mastery, if they haven’t earned enough points during the process of achieving mastery, they can not be successful in the class.  I am asking these questions because we have all, in some way, contributed to the culture of point chasing or GPA tracking.  This is now starting as early as 3rd grade.  When students ask the value of an assignment, what they are really looking for is a gauge of how much time and effort will need to be devoted to that assignment, and what level of quality work will be sufficient.  Is that what we value? To some extent.  We do want students to see value in the work and to do quality work.  And… as a result, engage in the work itself because they see why they would want to do it to  build their knowledge and skills, or apply what they know in new ways or to real world tasks. There’s the missing piece. If we respond to the question of “what is this worth” with a point total, instead of, “It is a necessary step in the learning process so that you can build the skills you need to take on problems that matter to you in the world” [Effect size of perceived task value is .46], we continue to value the outcome above the process, and so will our students. So, the first reflective activity for this week is to take a look at how your grading/feedback process communicates what you value and reinforces what your student’s value.  And, considering Hattie’s Visible Learning meta-analysis, what opportunities do students ( and teachers) have to establish learning goals [Effect size .68], demonstrate self-efficacy [Effect size .92], and self report grades [Effect size 1.33]?

What else do we value? I know that I value relationships. So much so that it is the lens I use to prioritize my weekly time budget.  Building relationships with peers, students, parents, and the community are an important part of our work. [Effect size of teacher student relationships .52]  What do our actions say about how much we really value relationships? “There are only so many minutes in a class day, and by the time we fit in all the things we need to stay on track, there just isn’t time to do a class circle or a check-in, or a shareout”. Or, “ I am so far behind on my to-do list, I can’t possibly attend _____, come to that meeting, spend more than 15 minutes touching base with you.”, Or, “I really want to send out a regular newsletter or have a parent roundtable but I just can’t find the time to get that started”, Or, you are scrolling emails and on your phone multi-tasking when you do have an opportunity to engage with students, or colleagues.  Does this sound like you sometimes, all the time? If the first thing that gets jetisoned overboard to lighten the time load is the time that you would be spending building those relationships, stop it. Without those relationships,  achieving your goals becomes much more difficult. Sometimes the time you think you are “saving” is actually added to the time it will take to accomplish your work.  It is those relationships that you can lean into when life becomes complicated with a student or colleague, when you run out of innovation energy, when you want to light that spark of inquiry or creativity, or when you and your team face a challenge that you can’t see around.   

What do we value? This would be a good starting question for a team meeting, TBT or BLT, or DLT meeting, board work session, or admin council meeting.  The answer will drive what data you prioritize, how you allocate funds in your budget, staffing decisions, what is included or not included in bell schedules and course guides, your grading systems, your PBIS model…

Knowing what you value and agreeing on what it looks like in action is work worth doing. 

Resources To Spark Your Thinking

• John Hattie Effect Size Table  

• Peers and Pedagogy Blog - Get Every Student Engaged in 10 minutes

• Increasing Student Engagement - Stanford Learning Commons 

• Karin Hess - Metacognitive Skills To Reveal Hidden Learning

• NASSP Standards Based Grading In High School

• Is Standards Based Grading Effective -  Theory Into Practice - Laura Link, Thomas Guskey

• Center For Creative Leadership - Building Relationship Skills At Work

• Lead With That Podcast - The 3 Cs Curiosity, Compassion and Courage

• Cult of Pedagogy Podcast - With James Sturtevant On How To Connect To Students

Upcoming Opportunities

• Registration is now open for the Science Education of Ohio (SECO) Conference. This year’s theme is Science Is Universal. Join us on January 29 & 30, 2024 at the Nationwide Hotel and Conference Center for the 2024 Science Symposium. Come learn, connect, and recharge at our two-day conference, put on by Ohio science educators for Ohio Science educators. Keynotes are Page Keeley and Dennis Schatz

• For more information on the Symposium, click here.

• Click here to register as an attendee. 

• Proposals are open for the 2024 Ohio Council of Teachers of Math (OCTM) Conference - find more information here.

• Registration is now open for the Ohio Education Technology (OETC) Conference 

• On Demand Webinar - How To Create A Culture of Mistake Learning In Your Classroom

• Mistake Literacy Professional Learning Playlist 

What Does Augmented Leading and Learning Look Like?

For December, I am focusing on a word a week. Last week’s word was Authentic.  This week I’m thinking about the word Augmented.  I’ve been using it a lot in conversations around how to use Generative AI to expand our capacity as leaders and learners. Augment in this context means  to complement or extend the skills.  What are augmented leaders doing? 

• leveraging Generative AI to process data efficiently and accurately so they can make informed decisions.

• utilizing Generative AI’s ability to identify patterns and predict future trends to anticipate opportunities and challenges and make proactive plans.

• relying on Generative AI to handle routine tasks freeing up time to focus on collaboration, strategic thinking, and culture.

• recognizing Generative AI as a thought partner in creative thinking and problem solving.

• Maximizing Generative AI to personalize leadership development and goal setting for themselves and their team.

• modeling the ethical use of Generative AI tools.

And if we’re augmented leaders, we need to have a clear understanding of what augmented teachers and learners look like:

• using Generative AI to better understand the unique needs of individual students and tailor instruction to personalize learning.

• interacting with Generative AI as an engaging lesson planning thought partner, accessing standards, analyzing data, and connecting curriculum to the lived experiences of students.

• embracing Generative AI as a student learning tool through interactive and immersive tech experiences, AI supported language learning, and real-time tutoring/feedback to make learning engaging and accessible for everyone.

• integrating Generative AI and other advanced tech tools to expand learning experiences and prepare students to meet the demands of living in the digital age. 

• maximizing Generative AI as a tool for fostering collaboration, creativity, communication, critical thinking, and self-reflection.

• prioritizing the ethical use of Generative AI in an inclusive environment, ensuring equitable access and user support.

If we are going to become augmented leaders supporting augmented learners, we need to spend time updating the process that we put in place for implementing and revising policy and administrative guidance around technology. Specifically artificial intelligence and Generative AI policies that are worded to  limit and restrict vs  policies put in place that empower and support, safe, efficient, ethical, creative, collaborative use of these tools. Are we modeling this for our students and our staff?

Resources to spark Inquiry

• Char’s Generative AI Padlet

• Char’s Ideas for Reviewing Policy 

• Will Technology Shape Our Future Or WIll We? - TEDtalk This is a very thought provoking TEDtalk. For fun, try putting the question she poses, "what if books were invented after video games" into ChatGPT as a thought experiment and see what result you get.

Things To Pay Attention Too

• Ohio Auditor of State’s FAQs related to Section 9.03 of the Ohio Revised Code’s prohibition against using public funds to support the passage of a political subdivision’s levy or bond issues

What Does Authentic Mean In The Context of Education?

Merriam- Webster’s word of the year is authentic.  What does authentic mean to you? Where are you using it in your professional conversations?  In the past few months I have been asked to define authentic in a number of education contexts.  First up, what makes a text authentic? One way to define authentic text is real-world written material that reflects the culture and societal context in which it was created.  By using text sets made up of authentic texts, we can build student knowledge by first giving them the opportunity to read texts with explicit background information, and words that are used and defined within the context of the text. These first texts  in a text set are like keys that will then unlock doors into more complex texts and learning opportunities that are also included in the text set. Authentic informational texts bring voice and perspective to classrooms, while  authentic literature can provide windows into the culture of a period of time. Creating text sets puts historical events into a context rather than a series of isolated dates and people. And, authentic text sets help students to make connections between what they are learning and their own lived experiences and interests.  

Next conversation, authentic math.  How do you provide opportunities for students to work toward far transfer, and take the instructional leap from textbook math to choosing how to approach a real world problem through math?  Samantha Fales, a math educator with Nordonia Schools, shared her response to this question at the OCTM state conference.  She has developed a relationship with a local Tool and Die manufacturer, which led to identifying multiple industrial applications that build on the kind of mathematical thinking that students develop in a HS geometry class. Samantha then took those applications and back -mapped them to her class, creating sets of authentic math tasks based on the Tool and Die jobsite. 

My most recent conversation,  are traditional points based grades an authentic measure of student learning? No. They aren’t. In fact, points are arbitrary and may be based on multiple factors including effort, participation, extra-credit, and timeliness- along with meeting a set of criteria that is equated to a demonstrated level of mastery.  More authentic measures include standards based grading, that uses consistent, mutually developed, performance descriptors.  Even more authentic, the use of student self-assessment. Again, with access to performance descriptors and sets of exemplar work.  Well designed performance tasks that are paired with assessment tasks  give students the opportunity to build knowledge and skills through an intentional set of learning tasks, then demonstrate mastery through an authentic, novel assessment task.  This was the model that was developed through the Ohio Performance Assessment Pilot (OPAP) project. Karin Hess has done a lot of work building out resources for creating and implementing high quality performance tasks.   The link to her resources is below. 

The current conversation that I am having is around how we will reframe our definition of authentic in the age of Generative AI.  President Biden’s executive order on Artificial Intelligence includes a section on how to watermark or identify images, voices, music, and texts that have been generated by various AI tools, to distinguish them from the “real thing”.  This is in response to concerns around intellectual and creative property, deep fake audio and vido recordings, and how to interpret copyright through the lens of AI. Yet, at the same time, we are also starting to shift how we think about “real things”.  The two articles below from The Conversation, a news site featuring articles written by university researchers, reflects this current discussion. As an advocate for the use of Generative AI in the education space, I see this as an opportunity for a “Both And” discussion.  What are the upsides of human autonomy? What are the upsides of augmented human/Generative AI work?  What are the downsides of each side of this discussion? How will we know when one side or the other is out of balance? What can we do to maximize the upsides of both sides? What can we do to minimize the downsides? 

Resources To Spark Your Thinking

• Merriam-Webster Word Of The Year Definitely Wasn’t Picked By AI - NPR story

• Merriam-Websters Word of the Year, Authentic, Reflects Growing Concern Over AI’s Ability to deceive and dehumanize. 

• Generative AI Is Forcing People To Rethink What It Means To Be Authentic - The Convsersation 

• OPAP Science Tasks (2015)

• Karin Hess’s Performance Task resources https://www.karin-hess.com/applying-rigor-to-pbl-cbe 

• This tool created by Dr. Bryan Drost and the RDL Network includes links to Ohio Performance Level Descriptors.  While these were designed to inform assessment development and scoring performance levels, they are also useful in building an understanding of what the continuum of mastery within a grade level set of standards can look like.