Winning The Data Game

As state assessment data begins to roll out, anxiety from school to school begins to rise.  Principals, teachers, parents, and students are waiting on pins and needles to find out just how good or how bad the flood of data will impact their school or their individual future. The greatest fear of all will be how schools are rated and ultimately labeled. Yes, the release of state assessment data is more about condemnation than affirmation. 

Anthony Muhammad said it best. Data is information, not condemnation, and as leaders we get swept away by the flood of data as it is released by the state, the response will be one of two emotions.  We will jump for joy when our passing rates are high and get giddy when our advanced scores go through the roof. 

OR

When the scores go down or they appear to be average, we tend to overreact because of the pending scrutiny and embarrassment that will follow. 

Data is Condemnation

As leaders we have to remember that how we respond to data condemns ourselves as well as those around us. When we talk about being the best school or our scores are the worst in history, we undermine those we lead if not our leadership altogether. If we fix our eyes on passing percentages or advanced performance, we are perpetuating the false narrative that standardized tests actually are the truest picture of learning. Because in the end when we deem students, teachers, schools, and districts as winners, we are also labeling others as losers. If we believe in all kids, then we must have a new approach to our response to data. 

Data is Information

If we truly believe that state data is information, then we should analyze the data through a new mindset. In other words, we mustn't look at numbers in isolation because a number means absolutely nothing unless it has 2, 3 or even 4 numbers to compare itself to. For data to be informational, it must tell people if student performance is growing, stagnant or declining. Furthermore, it should drive people to avoid the temptation of judgment and guide people to identify the contributing factors that caused the growth or lack thereof. 

Does your Data Condemn or Inform?

The data is in your hands. Will your rhetoric condemn your organization or the other organizations that you are in "competition with"?  Will you tout the fixed mindset of passing and advanced scores?  Will you identify winners and losers, or will you align your rhetoric to the belief that all kids can learn, and we will only gauge our effectiveness as an organzation based on student growth?  

When we fix our eyes on growth, we actually promote the idea of learning for all. We value all teachers. We promote all schools. Winning transitions from a competition into a collaborative effort, and most importantly all kids benefit. The data is the same, and our response is the game. 

#LoveMySchoolDay Success and Challenge

Well, year 3 of #LoveMySchoolDay was fantastic, and we doubled our participation from last year.  We had nearly 12,000 posts from all 50 US states and over 25 countries on ALL 7 CONTINENTS which was completely amazing.  It was so inspiring and exciting to watch the hashtag trend on Twitter, but it was even more exciting to see all the educators, students and communities displaying everything they are doing to make learning meaningful and powerful.

RT @ChrisWeissCT: #LoveMySchoolDay trending 500 tweets/hour+ since 8 am! Educators, keep sharing the awesome! pic.twitter.com/mtlmQLQmCK

— MindShift (@MindShiftKQED) April 11, 2016

To get a better picture of what #LoveMySchoolDay did to promote all the good in schools, check out the photos and videos that were shared. Not only will you smile, but you will be challenged to use the power of social media to tell your story even better.  Of all the things that I saw, there was one video that stood out, and it was by Julie Gauthier, principal at Ridgewood Elementary in Port Neches-Groves ISD.  She invited the local news station and school board members to help tell her school's story.  I didn't think of that idea, but I am definitely going to borrow that one next year.

Click here to watch the video.

Now Here's the Challenge!!!
It's easy to get excited about #LoveMySchoolDay for one day and then go back to business as usual, but I want to challenge you to to not let #LoveMySchoolDay be the only day that you tell your school's story.  This day was designed to displays all of the examples that we can and must tell our school's story every single day.  Remember, someone is always telling others about your school.  If you don't promote and share what's happening in your school, people's perception of your school will be based on outside influences which may not always be good or even factual.

Great showing of @LewisvilleISD peeps 4 #LoveMySchoolDay! May we not limit our celebrations & sharing of our story to just 1 day! #lisdchat

— LISD ProflLearning (@LisdLearns) April 12, 2016

The final challenge that I'll leave with you has to do with leadership and keeping the spirit of #LoveMySchoolDay alive and well until next April 11, 2017 (click here to accept your invitation now) when we do it all over again.  In order to keep that spirit alive we must embrace this quote by Jon Gordon if we truly want to be the kind of leaders that create the kinds of schools that all students deserve.

This is why #LoveMySchoolDay is important. pic.twitter.com/CaoKiudJlV

— John Wink (@JohnWink90) April 11, 2016

6 Ways to Re-recruit your Staff!

Signs are up advertising for job fairs.  Buses are parked on corners with banners advertising openings, and websites are bursting with all kinds of teaching and leadership positions.  Yep, spring time means recruiting time, and it is time to get out there and find new faces to fill your vacancies.

But are you doing the 'right' recruiting?
You see.  There's a reason that you have to fill all of those spots.  People are leaving.  Sure retirements are a natural phenomenon.  Advancement opportunities create vacancies, and people move.  But does every vacancy on your list fall into those categories?

How many people are leaving for a lateral move?  How many are leaving for greener pastures?  How many are leaving because of the culture that they currently work in?  If you don't know the answers to these questions, that is a problem that will create more recruiting work for you now and more work when you have to support them all next fall?

Is it Time to Re-Recruit your Employees?
Re-recruiting your current employees is an essential process to ensure that your organization continues to grow, and here are 6 ways you can better your chances of keeping your quality people on staff next year.

Recognize your staff on a frequent basis for all the hard work they have done.
Empower your staff to lead, experiment and most importantly take risks.
Teach your staff what you know and ask them to teach you.
Appreciate your staff through both word and deed.
Invite your staff to lead with you.
Nurture your staff when they fail, when they stumble and when they make mistakes.

Retaining your staff is nothing more than making the extra effort to recruit them all over again.  It may seem like a lot of work, but when compared with the task of training new faces who take their place, re-recruiting is a much better investment that will pay a huge dividend in the end,  a more successful organization next year and more time for you to invest in making all of your staff members even better when they return next year.

The 4 Elements of Excellent Assessments

There is no shortage of assessments in schools today. No matter the school, the lack or surplus of resources, or the collective expertise of the teaching staff, there will always be an assessment to give to students. The issue is not whether we have assessments or even if they're good assessments.  The question we have to continually ask ourselves is if our assessments possess the elements that accelerate learning. In other words, do we intentionally put the MENT in assessment?

The 4 Elements of Excellent Assessments

Meaning

Do our assessments and the data that they yield mean anything to the teachers who create them and the students who take them?  Furthermore do our assessments make learning a truly meaningful experience for both our teachers and students?

Excitement

Do our assessments cause students to generate an excitement about learning and a desire to know more about the content, especially if the content is difficult for them?

Narrow the Focus

Do our assessments tell students which specific skills are mastered, which specific skills are still struggling and what kids need to do next to master deficit skills?

Tenacity

Do our assessments result in greater tenacity in our students' quest for learning or turn kids off of learning altogether. Additionally, do our assessments result in teachers becoming more tenacious in their efforts to guarantee learning for every student, especially our lowest students?

Putting the MENT in Assessment

Assessments were never meant to kill learning, but some assessments dissolve from rigor into rigor-mortis while others transform rigor into vigorous learning. The deciding factor in whether or not our assessments will lead all kids to excellence depends 100% on how we decide to use those assessments to drive our instruction and inspire our students to love and take ownership of their learning. Ultimately, how we design assessments and respond to the data that they yield will always be what separates the best from the rest. 

Being SMART about Student Motivation

Motivation can add 10 points to a test.  It can take 10 seconds off of your long distance run, and it may just add 10 years to your life.  When we are motivated, we get more done and we get it done more enthusiastically.  To put it another way, motivation is exponent of life.  The more of it we have, the more fruitful our life will be.

Well, what if you're not motivated?
Bill Ferriter shared an interesting article by @MindShift about the brain research behind motivation, and it revealed that if we psyche ourselves up and focus our thoughts on being successful, we will ignite the neurons in the part of the brain that controls motivation.  So the evidence is conclusive. We can motivate ourselves if we make a concerted effort to do so.

So what if our students are unmotivated learners?
After reading the article, I was drawn to another @MindShift article called 20 Strategies for Motivating Reluctant Learners.  The piece highlighted Kathy Perez, an educator and consultant, who shared her ideas about ways to fire up the neurons in our unmotivated students.  She pointed out that motivated learning requires lots of action, interaction, and excitement, and here are a few reminders that we must never forget if we want to fire up our kids for learning.

• Student attention spans equal 1 minute per year of age.  (8 years olds have an attention span for any given activity for 8 minutes.)
• Boredom is Motivation's Kryptonite - If you don't respond to student boredom, they will lose the motivation to learn.
• Goal Setting is Essential - If we want kids to stay motivated, they must help set measurable and attainable goals that will keep them focused on the learning for the day.
• Group Collaboration with short time limits accelerates motivation - Instead of allowing 5 minutes to do group collaboration, Kathy recommends using seconds, like 72 seconds, to collaborate. The short amount of time actually focuses kids on more active learning.

In order to motivate the unmotivated, it requires us to ensure that the learning actually matters to kids.  It has to be learning that it attainable, but most importantly it has to be safe. The biggest turn-off to learning is not when the learning is boring.  It is when the learning makes kids lose faith in their ability as learners. 

Motivated Learning is SMART.

If you want more kids to be excited about the learning in your classroom, you have to determine if the learning tasks you select faciliate the SMART mentality.

• Specific & Stimulating - Does the learning have a specific goal and is it introduced in a way that piques our students' curiosity to want to know more about it.  
• Meaningful & eMpowering - Do we find a way to make the learning meaningful to our kids, and do we create learning opportunities that empower our kids to make their own meaning of what  they learn. 
• Attainable & Applicable - Do we stretch our kids to reach attainable short-term goals along the way, and do we allow our students to apply what they learn in predictable and unpredicatable situations.
• Results-Oriented & Real-World - Do our learning tasks yield tangible results that student can use to drive their next steps in learning, and does our learning apply to real-world that our students know and understand.
• Time-Bound & Targeted - Does our learning optimize time and give kids a clear target to shoot for at all times?

The best part of my reason to write this post was this video that I found at the end of the second article.  From the perspective of a student, the video clearly articulates what kids need in order to be confidently motivated to learn. 

Spring Cleaning for the Classroom

Spring is in the air and that means one thing, spring cleaning.  It's time to clean out the closets and garages and get the house spruced up for the new season.  While I know that spring cleaning takes a lot of work, I also know that it is well worth the effort.  It makes the rest of my spring so much more enjoyable.

Well let's apply that idea to your classroom.  

What are your plans to clean out your classroom.  I'm not talking about cleaning your room or even cleaning out the drawers and closets.  I'm talking about your routines, procedures, and processes that help all kids learn at higher levels.  As you are getting ready for spring break, ask yourself these questions?

1. Where is student behavior doing well, and what routines should continue this spring?
2. Where is students behavior lacking, and what do I need to change to better address it?
3. What activities promote higher levels of active engagement, and how can I get more of these activities into my instruction?
4. Where is engagement lacking, and what do I need to do differently to reengage my students this spring?
5. Where and how can I ramp up the rigor for high achievers in a more personalized and meaningful way?
6. Where and how can I give more support to struggling students that better addresses their deficits?

The answers to these questions will tell you what you need to address and what you need to "clean out" of your practice before spring break.  

Why do you need "Spring Cleaning" in your classroom before spring break?  

The answer is pretty simple.  When the students return from spring break, they will be fresh.  Upon their return, they will most open to new routines, motivational strategies and higher expectations.  They will also be more receptive to more challenging activities that require more movement, interaction and conversation, and they will more flexible than at any point in the year simply for one reason.  They will have been out of the "school" routine for 11 days.  

Spring weather brings with it a desire to be more active which is why behavior often gets more exuberant than usual.   It is important to remember that without a specific plan to adjust to the "spring" behavior that will return to your classroom after break, instruction has a strong chance of suffering.   Don't miss this "once a year" opportunity to do some spring cleaning in your classroom.  It may be just the thing that will meet your kids where they currently are and take them to where they need to be. 

4 Strategies to Coach Kids into a #GrowthMindset

We have all seen at least one example in our lifetime of a person who overcame tremendous obstacles to discover unbelievable success.  Can you see that person?  Do you remember his personality?  Can you visualize his perseverance? Recollecting your person's tremendous accomplishments, you may be thinking to yourself the following questions:

• What made them beat the odds?  
• How did they succeed?
• What do they have inside them that others don't?  

The answers to these questions typically leads us to the concept of growth mindset and how these excellence models intentionally put the GROW in their growth mindset through both their daily actions as well as their mental fortitude.  In today's post, I want to share with you how excellent people put the GROW in growth mindset, and how we teachers and leaders can coach kids into adopting this mindset.

The GROW in Growth Mindset
To help all kids to grow, we need to first define what the GROW looks like and then articulate how we can help all kids develop the skills that will help them grow into the success that is already deep inside them.

Goals that Grow
These people don't just have a long term goal.  They set daily and weekly goals for themselves that help them grow toward their goal.  They track their progress toward reaching their long-term goal and reflect on their daily efforts.  Based on goal-setting and reflection, they make adjustments to keep them on track and accelerate their growth.

Resiliency
These anomalies have never heard the word, quit.  In fact, they look failure in the eye and say, "You may have won today, but you haven't beaten me."  If they get knocked down 7 times, they will stand up 8.

Order
There is an unbelievable discipline to these people.  They have a routine to their daily lives that is abnormal.  That is why they succeed.  They do things that ordinary people can do but choose not to.

Wins & What's Next
Successful people on the grow don't win or lose.  They win and what's next.  In other words, they celebrate their successes and determine what they need to do next to stay on their path of excellence.


How do we teach kids to GROW?
It can be a challenge to convince kids to believe in their ability to grow, but with the right growth coach and the right strategies, we can persuade kids to give growth a chance.  Here are four strategies to help you coach your kids into a growth mindset.

• Growth Coach - We must first accept the notion that we don't teach kids.  We coach them by showing kids how to set goals that are based on improvement.  If kids base their excellence on the same standard, they will always compare themselves to one another.  Every kid is different; therefore, they need goals that stretch them from where they are to where they need to be. Our job is to help them create and commit to growth goals that are attainable. 

• Relationships of Resiliency - When you base your relationships with kids on being their success coach, you are teaching the importance of commitment to a goal and then growing closer to it.  Sometimes kids don't see where they can grow, and they want to give up too quickly when they fail.  But if they have a positive relationship with you, they will listen to you and trust your advice and encouragement, even when they want to quit.

• Organization - Kids don't naturally have the ability to structure themselves around their growth goals; therefore, they need you to give them organization that will help them do the right work that is directly tied to helping them reach their goal.  The key to growth is doing things that aren't fun or easy, so be sure to sell the importance of doing the work especially if it's hard.

• Win-Maker - The best coaches can find the win in kids now and leverage that win to help them grow.  They do that by giving them specific feedback that tells them how well they're doing and how they can do even better next time.  They celebrate the now and the potential in what could be.

Growth is a hard thing for kids to chase because it is such an illusive and never ending target. Our job as leaders and teachers is to create systems and structures that are aligned with and promote growth. When we can create both a culture and a structure where growth is a the center of all work in the school, kids will not only accept growth as a goal, they will believe in it and ultimately grow from it.