Sometimes a Small Step is Big

Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash

Sometimes a small step is better than doing nothing at all.

"Can you go today?" my friend texted as she tried to get me to the gym.  She'd been working this angle for nearly two months and my calendar seemed to make it impossible.

"I can't today," I replied, "but keep asking.  I do want to get there."  She was likely doubting my sincerity as I had replied so many times that I couldn't make it work.  I may have been doubting it too.

In all honesty, this went on for a few months.  Finally she sent me a text inquiring, "Can you go to the gym Monday, Thursday, or Saturday?"  Clever.  Three days did make it possible to make it work.  As I looked at my calendar there was an opening so we scheduled a time to go.

Sometimes a small step is better than doing nothing at all.  

That was two months ago.  Yesterday, I was driving back from a run - okay a walk, jog, run, walk - at the gym and thinking about how I seemed to have found a rhythm with the gym.  I am starting to want to get to the gym.  It's nothing amazing, but I've gone 2-3 times each week for about two months now.  I just gave myself permission to quit trying to put in place long workouts and just get to the gym.  I gave myself permission to just take a first step.  I committed to going at least once a week.  Then once a week became twice a week.  Since I gave up trying to do long workouts and just get to the gym, I often find myself there three times a week if my calendar allows.  It is a small step, but big.

It's like that in our classrooms too.  Sometimes the challenges can seem so overwhelming that it's hard to dive in to tackle them.  I can remember times when my teaching in reading or writing workshop seemed to not be working.  It was in those times that if I could just take one small step, I would begin to see a difference.  Sometimes it was committing to keeping my mini lesson mini or making sure I didn't skip a share.  Sometimes it was pushing myself to stay on time so that a support teacher was able to push in and use her time effectively.  Sometimes it was putting more time into my language when I was unsure of next steps or spending time to find the right question to start an inquiry.  One little change can often make a big difference.

Sometimes a small step is better than doing nothing at all.

Whether in our personal or professional lives, there are times we want to make a change, but it seems so big.  Sometimes we are presented with a problem that feels overwhelming.  Sometimes we find ourselves in cycles of habit we'd like to break.  Sometimes we want to improve something, but the task seems to large to begin.  Maybe, in those times, the secret is to find one small step that will make a difference.  Before we know it we are on our way.

Sometimes a small step is all it takes.  

What's the small step you want to take?

Sometimes a small step...
                                         is big.  

On Real Innovation: What Digital Literacy Brings Us #immooc

"I'm defining innovation as a way of thinking that creates something new and better."    ------ George Couros, The Innovator's Mindset (loc 374)

For the next six weeks, I've decided to join the community conversation around The Innovator's Mindset:  Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity by George Couros.  This conversation is being led by George and Katie Martin.  You can join the conversation at the #immooc event hub, the Twitter #immooc hashtag, or the Facebook group.  

Recently I was gathered around a table of educators discussing our district's move toward 1:1 in our elementary schools.  I'm continually reminded how fortunate I am to work in a district that values this shift toward new opportunities for our students.  We have always had people working toward the vision of growing the possibilities afforded through digital technologies.  There has been careful planning of devices, applications, and professional development, complemented by the side-by-side support of technology coaches to help us through these new steps.

As I've moved from building to building in conversations around these blended learning opportunities, there is a mix of excitement and caution as we take these new steps.  Many are excited about the new possibilities that 1:1 will allow our students, but I also sense a bit of caution as educators try to balance this possibility with pedagogy.  As I dig deeper into the shift toward digital learning, I realize that it is less about the tools and more about our instructional practices and the opportunities students have as a result of these new tools.  Couros reminds us, "Technology can be crucial in the development of innovative organizations, but innovation is less about the tools like computers, tablets, social media, and the Internet, and more about how we use those things."

As educators, we work to do what is best for the children that sit beside us each day.  It's the how (his emphasis) that I've been thinking a lot about lately.  For me, this shift isn't as much about digital learning as it is about digital literacy.  It isn't as much about completing tasks, as it is about intentional decision making.  It isn't as much about working independently as it is about connecting to other learners, growing your community beyond your classroom, and having a voice today.  It isn't as much about using digital tools as it is about purposefully selecting from a variety of tools, digital or otherwise, to intentionally create and compose a message.  It isn't as much about learning how to work digitally as it is about learning to live in the new culture created by the availability of digital technologies.  It isn't as much about being a student as it is about becoming a global citizen.  It isn't about schooling; it's about education.

These two tweets were among my favorites this week for showing how students can own their learning process and make intentional decisions (note the digital and print decisions):

Ss connected what they read about pumpkin seeds to place and value! They were so excited to share. @AltonDarby pic.twitter.com/1yiERHFdas

— Meredith Kleman (@adekleman) September 29, 2016

Slides, iMovie, posters, models - V & C in sharing abt Civil War, Gold Rush, Chinese Architecture & English lang.! @BRN_Elementary @hernonch pic.twitter.com/k1F5SizLUG

— Kay Richardson (@KRichardson177) September 29, 2016

Shifting Our Thinking 
The how requires a shift in our thinking.  I'm going to push Couros's definition for innovation in education one step further by saying that innovation creates "something new and better" and raises the level of learning for students - they own it.  Technology allows us to do all kinds of new and better things, but not all of those are best practices.  One of my friends has a new saying, "Just because they can, doesn't mean mean we should."  If the innovation isn't growing the opportunities and understandings of our learners, if it isn't developmentally appropriate, if it doesn't take our learning to new levels, if it doesn't connect us, then perhaps we need to push ourselves to go deeper.

One of my favorite quotes about change is from Troy Hicks in The Digital Writing Workshop, "When we simply bring a traditional mindset to literacy practices, and not a mind-set that understands new literacies into the process of digital writing, we cannot make the substantive changes to our teaching that need to happen in order to embrace the full potential of collaboration and design that digital writing offers (p.2)."  As we move toward 1:1 learning environments we need to be patient with ourselves in this journey, but we also need to ask ourselves the hard question, "What could be different?".

Expanding our definition of literacy to include digital texts, tools, and networks, is one step toward innovative change.  However, it is also requires us to work in "new and better" ways that lift the level of learning.  Perhaps innovation is quite simple.  Perhaps it is just about turning the decision making over to students.  Perhaps it is just about valuing questions over answers.  Perhaps it is about connecting learning communities.  Perhaps it just about being willing to take the first steps.


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Innovator's Mindset #IMMOOC

"Change is an opportunity to do something amazing."  -George Couros

For the next six weeks, I've decided to join the community conversation around The Innovator's Mindset:  Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity by George Couros.  This conversation is being led by George and Katie Martin.  You can join the conversation at the #immooc event hub, the Twitter #immooc hashtag, or the Facebook group.  

What happens when you are asked to revision school?  A few years ago our school community was asked to do just that.  At first, there's an excitement in the air.  What teacher hasn't dreamed of starting their own school with all the pieces of education they value?  Dreaming and reality can be two different things.  Trying to really think about changing school is harder than one might think.  When you've known school to be one thing, it's hard to really see it as another.  It's hard to look past what is known, to get to what is new.

Since that time, schools across our district have been asking that question.  What could school look like for our students?  Many have started down a path toward revisioning school.  We've begun to work toward environments that allow for more personalized learning, utilization of technology, and empowerment of students to truly own their own learning.  We're more intentional about creating communities that ask questions, seek new possibilities, collaborate and connect.

It's hard for us to make these changes, but students are living in a different world and our schools need to reflect that world.  There are challenges in innovating education.  As educators, we're uncomfortable with taking a risk to move toward change.  Rigid testing requirements push against authentic learning opportunities.  Schedules tie us into routines and make it difficult to flexibly provide innovative opportunities for students.

Perhaps some of the challenge is that we remain focused on content over ways of thinking and learning.  We place great value in tasks, over real-world literacy.  We focus on achievement over growth, and answers over questions.    Couros reminds us, "If schools are only about content and information, that reality poses a threat to educational facilities (loc 170)."  He goes on to say, "Although we say we want kids to think for themselves, what we teach them is compliance (loc 190)."  How could our schools look different?  How could they better prepare students for the world they live in today?  When I struggle to know what is right, I push myself to think beyond barriers, beyond schedules and routines, beyond the school I have always known, to my students.  What is truly best for the students that sit in front of me each day?

We have the opportunity to begin to change the system for our students.  We just have to be brave enough to step forward.

I'm looking forward to this opportunity to revision my thinking with the #immooc community as we discuss innovation in our schools.  To begin to innovate, I know I will need to:

 Innovate from Cathy on Vimeo. (made with Haiku Deck)

Here a few favorite quotes from the introduction:

• "Change is the opportunity to do something amazing." (loc 149)
• "We forget that if students leave school less curious than when they started, we have failed them." (loc 190)
• "If we want to 'innovate students,' we will need to 'innovate educators (loc 213).'''
• "The focus on compliance and implementation of programs in much of today's professional development does not inspire teachers to be creative, nor does it foster a culture of innovation (loc 213)."
• "We must make time for our teachers to grow (loc 213)."
• "We need to develop shared vision, align expectations, and provide pathways to ensure that all teachers have the resources to learn, create, and innovate to meet the needs of today's learners (loc 213)."
• "The goal isn't to change for the sake of change but to make changes that allow us to empower our teachers and students to thrive (loc 234)."
• "What you can do is create the conditions where change is more likely to happen.  As a leader, you can create those conditions by taking a strengths-based approach for learning and leadership and unleashing the talent in your organization (loc 256)." 
• "Create school cultures in which values such as originality, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge are the norm of our students, our teachers, and ourselves (loc 297)."

(Yep, that's just the introduction....can't wait to read on...)

Change & Possibility

"If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don't have to be pushed, the vision pulls you."  -- Steve Jobs

Change 
After days of sorting, packing, pitching, putting things away, I looked around the now empty classroom.  It was in this moment that I realized for the first time in 26 years I was saying goodbye to spending part of my day in a classroom.  Each year, for 26 years, I've become entwined in a community of learners for a year.  Each year we've learned to share space, we've helped each other discover new learning, we've shared books, and we've laughed together.  Even during my years as a Reading Recovery teacher and a Literacy Coach I was still in a classroom for half of my day.

Suddenly I stood in the doorway and realized the significance of my decision to move to a reading intervention position in my building.  It was time for a change.  I like change.  I thrive on change.  I'd been teaching first grade in the same space (well, nearly the same space --- long story) for at least 8 years.  That's kind of a record for me and speaks to the community I am a part of which always pushes my thinking and keeps me laughing at the same time.  When I heard of a primary reading intervention spot opening up in our building, I'll admit I was intrigued.  There was so much possibility there.  The idea of thinking about something new was exciting.

As the possibility became a reality I was excited, but I was also a little worried.  How would I feel not having a classroom community?  What about reading aloud to a classroom of students?  What about not sitting beside writers every day?  What about technology?  What about my amazing team?

Possibility 

As I looked around the room, I took a deep breath and tried to gain perspective.  Walking to the new room I would use as a hub in my work with readers I started to consider the new possibilities and determine ways around potential roadblocks.  Having just come from a classroom, I have learned a lot I hope will help me in this position to support readers and teachers.  From my point of view as a classroom teacher I have learned many of the benefits of reading support and some of the challenges readers receiving support face in the classroom.  In my work as a Reading Recovery teacher, my friend, Jen Morgan and I, worked to consider classroom transitions.  This will be important to think about in the months to come.

This summer, I will be contemplating possibilities.  My bookshelf is stacked with books to read and reread about reading instruction, intervention, and shaping readers.  I'm keeping a running list on my phone of ideas I may want to consider as I begin a new year.  I'm rethinking "community" and making mine bigger.  I'm considering how I will collaborate and share information with teachers to make it easy for them to access without taking much of their time, yet allow us to stay consistent in our messages for readers.  I'm wrestling with Google vs. Evernote.  I'm thinking about technology tools and applications that will purposefully support the readers I will see each day.  I'm planning ways to transition into a new year and get in touch with readers as they do the important work of learning routines and finding their place in their classroom communities in the first weeks of school.

This summer, I'm planning possibilities.  I'm looking forward to the new opportunities and challenges that are ahead.



Let's Connect
If you work in this capacity and you have thoughts/suggestions/tips you'd like to share, please leave them in the comments.  I'd love to build connections and learn from you.  If you work with readers who receive support and you have have thoughts/suggestions/tips you'd like to share, I'd love to hear them.  I'm interested in knowing about books that have shaped your practice, challenges you've faced, organizational tips, planning suggestions, your instructional framework, structuring days that work for students and teachers, and much much more.

Conferring: Improving Conversations with Readers

“There is something lasting about sitting down next to a child and having a conversation as fellow readers.” Patrick Allen p. xv

Today is Part II of a cyber bookchat about Conferring by Patrick Allen (#cyberPD).  Last week, the conversation began here as we discussed Part I:  “What Brings About a Good Conference Anyway?”.  You’ll want to visit the Part I posts at our Conferring Jog.  Today we are discussing Part II:  “What Are the Essential Components of Conferring?”.  Today’s conversation is hosted by Jill Fisch at My Primary Passion.  You’ll want to stop by to join the conversation.

The Importance of Conferring

It has been several years since I changed the structure of my Reader’s Workshop and moved away from a workboard (students at centers while I worked with groups) to using a structure similar to Writer’s Workshop. It just seemed to make sense that if I wanted my students to be readers they needed more time to read.  Reader’s Workshop allows more time for children to read independently, to enjoy books with friends, to talk together about books, to develop the strategies we are learning, and to grow their reading lives.   

The Structure of Reader’s Workshop:

• Focus Lesson:  Each workshop begins with a focus lesson. 
• Independent Reading:  Then students read (Allen calls it composing time) while I confer with readers and work with small groups.  During this time you will find students reading alone, with a partner, discussing books, thinking, learning, writing, etc..
• Share:  Our workshop always ends with time to share and reflect.  

Reader’s Workshop not only gives me time to work alongside readers in a variety of contexts, but it gives me the opportunity to get to know them as readers.  There is no doubt that conferring is an important part of my Reader’s Workshop.  Reading Allen’s book has given me time to reflect on how significant this time really is for young readers, for learning, and for teaching.  Last week Mandy Robek shared all she has missed when she was not conferring, and I’m going to post this in my classroom as a reminder of the significant work occurring in these small moments.

Mandy said:

I have missed regularly conferring with students.  I have missed...

-"Purposeful conversations that provided me with meaningful instruction-rich in strategy, inquiry, vocabulary, and skills.

-"...conversations that stretched my thinking and monitored my understanding."

-"Purpose is uncovered during the reading conference,..."

-"Conferring helps me find out new things about the reader and provides an intimate opportunity for a shared "coming to know"

-"Conferring helps me uncover a reader's learning in a manageable, thoughtful way while leading to documentable data..."

Allen shares his reasons for conferring (p. 34).  Reading his book has given me an opportunity to really think about the importance of conferring.  Time to confer provides opportunities to:

• Establish a trusting relationship with the student
• Get to know each reader
• Reinforce and/or extend focus lesson conversations (differentiate)
• Learn what the reader is “thinking”, wondering, “discovering” p. 99
• Record progress over time
• Address specific needs that are more targeted to the reader
• Teach at the edge of student learning
• Empower the reader with new skills, strategies, and understandings
• Shape the life of a reader
• Smile, laugh, cry, wonder, discover, and learn from authors, characters, story events, and books together --- reader-to-reader

The Challenges of Conferring

Though I find conferring in Reader’s Workshop to be worthwhile, I do not find it to be easy.  For some reason, conferring in Reader’s Workshop is more challenging for me than conferring in Writer’s Workshop:

• It is harder to stay consistent with time spent conferring in Reader’s Workshop
• Reading work (more in the head) is not as concrete as writing work (more on paper)
• In writing conferences I seem to be more comfortable letting students take the lead
• It is easier for me to choose teaching points in Writer’s Workshop (perhaps because I keep more to the focus lesson conversations)
• It is easier to name concepts, strategies, etc. in writing than in reading (again because work is concretely in front of us)
• Writing conversations seem to be more forward thinking with goal setting, clear expectations
• I seem to use reading conference more to find out about student thinking, but writing conference more to move writer forward

The Change

The reason I wanted to participate in this professional opportunity to discuss conferring is I wanted the time to look – really look – at conferring in Reader’s Workshop.  What do I need to change to make it more effective?  How do I help readers move forward in these small snippets of time?  How do I help young readers to develop ownership of their reading and learning?  What can I learn from others to make conferring in Reader’s Workshop more effective?  What can I learn from writing conferences that would improve reading conferences?

When I worked as a literacy coach conferring with readers in classrooms was hard.  It was easy to make conferences about “the reading” and not about “the reader” because I lacked the knowledge of history.  I didn’t know the conversations shared, literature read, strategies taught, or learning discussed.  To me, conferring as a classroom teacher has the potential to be much more powerful for learners because I have the knowledge of history.  I know the conversations the community has had about reading.  I know the books we’ve read together.  I have seen the progress of the reader sitting beside me.  I know the strengths of the reader.  I know where the reader needs support.  As a classroom teacher, it is much easier to have a conference that is about “the reader” and not the reading.  Still there are changes I need to make to make improve conferring in Reader’s Workshop.

The Plan

• Change my conferring structure from listen, reflect, teach to listen, reflect, teach, PLAN.
• Learn to let readers lead reading conferences (listen more).
• Never, never, never compromise conferring time.
• Be more explicit in plan, purpose, goal setting part of reading conference.  This is the time Allen calls (the P in RIP) plan, progress, purpose.  (pp. 102-104)
• End the conference with an intentional plan.  p. 102

The Take-Aways

• Teaching doesn’t always come from telling it often comes as we name what readers are doing. 
• “When a student leaves a conference, I want her to have something in mind that may help her remember, understand, extend meaning, or make her reading experience memorable.” p. 104
• “Keep the conference and teaching short enough to accomplish something important, meaningful, and applicable.” p. 129
• “We want to think carefully about the language we use with readers from the moment we sit down beside them.  And we also have to remember that often that language comes from the student.”  p. 137
• “The reader is better served if his voice, his thinking, fills the airspace during a conference.”  P. 148

Still Pondering:

• While I have found a recording system that works well for me, I’m wondering about adding a student-recording component.  Katie DiCesare’s post, School Shopping: Blank Books, has given me more to think about here.
• Like many in this #cyberPD group, I am wondering about switching from my notebook to recording conferences using an application that would allow me to take pictures, use audio to record student conversations, and continue to record observations. 
• This year I plan to record more conferences to look closely at who is doing most of the talking, the true structure of the conference, the power of the teaching points, the types of conversations I’m having, patterns, trends, etc..
• I also want to compare the conversations I have with different types of readers.  I want to be sure that my readers needing the most support are having high level conversations about books, reading, and thinking.