Nice?

photo source

"Just be nice."

How many times have we heard this? How many times have we used this word to encourage peace among others? And yet, the word is so vague. It's also a missed opportunity. 

In her Grande Prairie Ted Talk, Christine Ayling describes the Virtues Project and the profound effect it has had on her career and her life and most importantly, on the people she counsels and supports through trauma and struggle. Ayling recommends eliminating the word nice from your vocabulary. Why? When we eliminate the word "nice," suddenly we use more specific, more apt words. These better words describe the qualities we see in others, qualities we want to foster and develop and affirm: virtues.

Instead of describing someone or something as nice, why not seize the teachable moment and offer some insight to our students and colleagues, some feedback that can truly impact their greatest strengths, their virtues. Why not identify, recognize and affirm

• gentleness?
• discernment?
• tolerance?
• cheerfulness?
• humility?
• respect?
• honour?
• courage?
• cooperation?
• endurance?
• patience?
• confidence?
• tact?
• mercy?
• optimism?
• faith?
• perceptiveness?
• flexibility?
• empathy?
• truthfulness?
• wonder?

Indeed, why not? Have a nice virtuous day friends.

Creating Learners

Recently, we coaches spent a day with all the Junior High teachers in our school division. We enjoyed the opportunity to talk to them about building a collaborative culture and we feel immense gratitude for their insights and ideas. They have such an important job!

One of our activities was to define the ideal skills and attributes of a student. Using a bit of backwards design, we hoped to encourage teachers to visualize the type of learner they, through their influence, want to create. The wordle says it all.

What kind of students do you want to create?

What do learners pay attention to?

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This past July, SHIFT published their 10 most effective engagement strategies for e-learners. However, they seem quite applicable to any type of classroom.

Based on our teaching experience, our top five favourite go-to engagement strategies were
1. stories
2. visuals
3. emotions
4. controversy
5. contrast

Which ones are your favourites? And to switch things up, what would you like to try next?

For more information and resources linked to each strategy, click here.

How do I know I'm making a difference?

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Every day, thousands and thousands of teachers influence students. Yet because we teachers are in the midst of the busy day-to-day aspects of learning, we sometimes don't recognize or even realize the signs that show we are truly making a difference in the education and lives of our students. Stop and think about that. It's true, isn't it? This idea inspired our list of 15 ways to know YOU ARE making a difference: 


1. Students talk to you umprompted (or give you a fist bump or a high five).
2. You’ve tried new things (and some even worked!)
3. People directly tell you. (Don't dismiss it; let those compliments soak in!)
4. You are less nervous when your admin or colleagues visit your room.
5. You mentor other teachers. People want your opinion.
6. Students raise their hands to share rather than always to ask for help.
7. Your students miss you after a day with a sub.
8. Your students can verbalize what they’re learning.
9. You notice students using words like "criteria" and other vocabulary you've taught them.
10. A student models your thinking or behaviour to other students.
11. You're tired but energized too. You smile at the beginning of the day (not just the end).
12. You are marking less but assessing more.
13. Your staffroom conversations are more about sharing strategies and collaborating.
14. A parent or guardian or former student or adminstrator takes a moment to thank you.
15. Students are reading and writing and creating and thinking and questioning and laughing and learning!

Got Test Anxiety?

Many of our students experience test-anxiety or lack confidence when faced with any type of assessment. These issues speak to the need for students to learn about perseverance and problem-solving and develop personal strategies around them. One such strategy might be a brain purge (sometimes called a brain dump) Despite the odd name, it could really be quite helpful.

 

So how does it work?

After learning new material over a period of time, have students do a "brain purge" on a blank page. Essentially, they dump everything they know about what they've learned. This has many uses:
1. It helps students articulate their learning.
2. It allows teachers to see "gaps" in learning.
3. It allows for teacher/peer feedback.
4. It creates a study guide before tests.
5. If done for a few minutes immediately before a test, it becomes the study guide during the test.

All of these approaches may be quite useful in removing anxiety and developing confidence in learning and assessment. What do you think?

Find out more information here at Edutopia.

Guilty as Charged. Can you relate?

 (c) Jessica Hagy

All teachers make mistakes. The trick is to forgive yourself and use them as opportunities to grow. We teacher-coaches have made many, many mistakes over the years. Together, it didn't take us long to compile these 26 common gaffes but, to be honest, it took us quite a while to really learn these lessons. Can you relate?

1. Not taking care of myself: coming to work tired, sick, or hungry only made me more tired, more sick, and more hungry.
2. Poor Aim: not ensuring students know the learning target.
3. I’ll do it later: not getting my materials ready ahead of time usually turned into a classroom management nightmare.
4. Keep a Copy: By not keeping the plan, next year becomes a teaching guessing game including that awesome lesson with that neat video clip.
5. Rush-Rush-Rush: not recognizing the importance of wait-time, think-time, time to reflect, time to process.
6. Tossing it over my Shoulder: using a new strategy only ONCE because it didn’t work perfectly the first time.
7. Kids These Days: after a lesson went poorly, I often blamed the kids as opposed to applying a different instructional strategy. 
8. Stern-face: forgetting to smile and greet kids (even when it starts to feel creepy) because this truly models respect.
9. It’s Easy or You're so Smart: saying these words does not make something easy, nor does it help a struggling student suddenly figure it out.
10. Who's Working Here? working harder than the students.
11. Chin Up!: focusing more on my insecurities than on modeling confidence.
12. They’ll Figure it Out: putting questions on a test that don’t have answers or are worded so poorly even I didn’t know what they meant.
13. Why do we need to learn this stuff? Forgetting to make learning relevant to students' lives.
14. But they’re Quiet: thinking students were engaged just because they were sitting nicely looking forward.
15. The Quick Kick-Out: not giving students a chance to explain the situation before jumping to conclusions and kicking them out of the class.  
16. Shutting my Door: avoiding collaboration because...what if someone finds out I feel like a fraud sometimes? 
17. Not Being Myself: even if my colleagues give advice, keep my philosophy in mind when making decisions.
18. Squirrel: getting easily distracted from the lesson through my own doing or through barely disguised student manipulation.  
19. Jumping on the Negative Pity-Party Bandwagon to Nowhere: self-explanatory.
20. Seeing ALL the Kids in the Pool: not preparing for the kids who need a lifeguard because they don't get it.
21. They're almost Adults: assuming that somehow a 16 year old would not have the mentality of a 16 year old. 
22. The Kids Don't Like Me: Trying to be every student's friend instead of being a role model/leader.
23. Lesson Plan B: not being prepared when the lesson ends too early or when the technology craters. 
24. The Anything & Everything Volunteer: the school will be okay if I'm not on every committee they offer but instead focus on one that I'm passionate about.
25. I TOLD THEM: not understanding the difference between students who were taught and students who learned. 
26. Get-em-out-the-Door: slow down, take a breath, pause, pay attention. 

David, Spencer, Valerie, Fran & Anna