The Urgency to Change

I like change. One might say that I live for and even thrive on change.  I've willingly changed my teaching position just because I feel the need to do so.  I was a first grade teacher, a second grade teacher and now a technology teacher.  A few years into my career as a technology teacher, a colleague shared the Technology Integration Matrix (I found the link in my diigo.  I tagged it on April 18, 2008.) I remember feeling somewhat overwhelmed by it as a Technology Teacher/Coach newbie.  I had a huge sense of "wow" looking at it and trying to dissect it.  But I was up for the challenge and excited about how I could use the information to move teachers and students into 21st Century learning.  Fast forward 6 years and here I am seeing it again in a MOOCed, shared out on twitter.  When I saw it again, it stopped me in my tracks, like seeing an image of an old friend who you've lost touch with.  My first thought was, "I am a total failure at this coaching thing. I've been at this for over six years and I dropped the ball with helping teachers truly integrate technology."  Seeing it made me feel like I just bombed the final.

When I first took this position, I was excited about teaching others the possibilities of how technology can make our teaching lives easier and we can engage students in a way like never before.  I started out eager to share all of what I was learning and get 21st Century Skills a basic part of our everyday teaching and learning.  I'm sad to say that it didn't go down like that.  Instead my excitement was met with all the usual thinking of the day: "I don't have time to learn that," "That won't work", "What we are doing is just fine, why change it?" and one of my favorites, "we need equality in what is being done, work with everyone equally".  It was quite a laundry list of reasons not to integrate technology, so I quietly found teachers interested in learning and just focused on them, not wanting to disturb the delicate balance of being a teacher/coach.  Not stepping over the bounds of being a peer.  I lost the will to fight for what I thought was important.  I lost the urgency to generate change.

Today I am seeing more clearly that I let the teachers down, but more importantly, I let down all the students that have passed through these halls since I took this position.  I allowed others negativity, influence and wishy-washy leadership effect my own learning and desires to see change take place in my school. It's time for change.  It's time to no longer accept the weak excuses of many who don't even know the discussion happening beyond their classroom walls.  It's time to move people beyond themselves and their classroom.

My plan is to use a faculty meeting to start conversations.  From those conversations, my hope is that teachers will start asking more questions and start rethinking what they've always done. How are you sharing out and coaching teachers? What is your plan?

Peer-Over Coaching

Watcha doin'?

I had started a different post earlier today, but after tonight's #CDL_MOOCed twitter chat, I have a new topic to discuss...how to best roll out TPACK/SMAR, digital age skills, 4Cs, 21st Century Skills...whatever you want to call them!

I don't believe that the top-down model is the most effective way to get teachers moving in new direction like the above mentioned list because it's often done in an ineffective way: little PD, lots of list of what to do and what not to do and little time to master the ideas.  Instead, a peer-over coaching manner seems to be more effective and longer lasting.  So what is the peer-over coaching method? Let me share a story:

Seven years ago, I became the technology teacher/coach in a K-5 elementary school.  There was one floating Smartboard and one hanging in the lab. (This is by no means a plug for a tool...hang in there.)  After chatting with one of the fifth grade teachers, who was very interested in trying new things in her classroom, I encouraged her to house the smartboard in her classroom so it would not collect dust in the pod and just try using it for one thing during her day.  Every few days I would check in with her, give her some tips for using the board, creating a notebook or accessing some resource to use with her class. Over the course of just a few months, she was using the board and notebooks for all subject areas and teaching her students to create notebooks to present information to their classmates. Other fifth grade teachers noticed.  The board was shared out and by the end of that year, the fifth grade teachers were writing grants for smartboards and projectors.

The other fifth grade teachers peered over to a what a peer was doing and wanted in on it.  They saw the benefits, the ease of information delivery and the future possibilities.  In later years, all of our teachers received Smartboards and these 4 fifth grade teachers became "go tos" for many of the other teachers in the building.  So I give you the peer-over method.  Sometimes, allowing peers to learn from each other and not necessarily the authority figure creates more meaningful learning and application of what we are trying to teach.

This may mean letting go of a little control for some coaches or digital leaders.  I'm ok with that because I know that the most important thing is not WHO teaches the new idea or concept but just that it's ACQUIRED by the learner.

Have you learned from a peer and then shared with another?  You are part of peer-over coaching!