Here’s an example from my real life. I live in a region of the United States where it is extremely hot. Right now, it is 94F/34C. My air conditioner has not been running properly and I called a technician to come out to fix the problem. After their first visit, I noticed that the temperature fell dramatically and I was fixed to the sofa in front of a box fan. The following day, I called the technician’s office and the office manager asked me to go to the unit. In two minutes, we discovered that the connector was left on top of the unit, so nothing had worked until the previous evening. My agency connection: I should have inspected the A/C unit when the air started to decrease in my home to investigate the possible problem. Instead, all of the cool air within the home was removed and it took all day to reinstate it with a faulty machine. The temperature is not back to where it was, but at least I have my trusty box fan to get me through. Similar to a box fan, what are we giving our learners to cool down their frustration with learning? What tools and structures are in place, so they can recalibrate and find some balance? Our relationship with timeOne of the first things I am going to challenge your thinking is your relationship with time. I know you don’t have a lot of it. This is undisputed. But, it’s how you use the time you have with learners that will greatly enhance the outcome. I’ve been researching schedules for quite some time, no pun intended. I recently explored the concept of time tables while re-reading and podcasting about the book, Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners by Zaretta Hammond.
Hammond continues,”When we don’t practice or use new dendrites (the neural pathways) shortly after a learning episode, our brain prunes them by starving them and then reabsorbing them. It assumes you didn’t revisit the activity that grew the dendrites that information wasn’t important to keep.” This reminds me of things I’ve learned in the past that children need exposure within 24-48 hours to an idea or it’s lost forever. I’ve also heard that we need to revisit an idea 4-5 times before it permanently stays in our long-term memory. This makes sense based on what Hammond has proposed based on neural activity. you didn’t revisit the activity that grew the dendrites that information wasn’t important to keep. How does this apply to my role?As specialist and supporting teachers, you have such limited time with your learners within a given week. Creating the neural pathways in your learners is more essential in role, because of the massive time delay between sessions. For learners to truly remember and build on prior understanding, we need to examine how we are teaching and how it supports long-term memory development. We know that short-term memory is short. It can only process information for 30-45 seconds at a time. Every time I try to remember my seat number on a plane and fail, I blame it on my short-term memory. Your memory is also working and trying to process the information, so it can be sorted towards long-term memory where a physical change to the neurons occurs. This is not enough. We need our learners to go through a process of transferring the information. This requires a repetition of ideas and skill development on a regular basis, so it’s able to remain in long-term memory. Learning transfer happens when teachers are intentional with their time. They know that there is a finite window for knowledge acquisition and skill development. The problem is if we are delivering content in the traditional model. This can’t happen in a PYP school, because our ultimate goal is to make transdisciplinary connections. How can this happen if you as the specialist or supporting teacher guide your lessons through traditional models? The two don’t meet. This is where we need to look at our own time management. Are we maximizing our time so learner agency can thrive? Are we a block from agency happening in our classrooms? This is a bold question, but let’s explore how we might better use our time, so agency can grow. The thinkchat lesson cycle has been designed to reflect best practice around the balanced literacy approach, which has been mirrored in many reading, writing, and math workshop models. If it can work for a homeroom teacher, why not us? It’s about using the model to best meet our purpose. thinkchat lesson cyclePose a question (1-2 mins): pose a question about the topic you are about to explore that provokes thinking and gets learners talking. Warm-up activity (3-5 mins): give an open-ended task that learners must solve that extends the thinking from the question you have posed. While learners are engaged in this thinking, you are monitoring their thinking and jotting down misconceptions, aha moments, and ideas that need to be clarified. For supporting teachers with smaller groups, you are guiding this process, but still allowing the learners to come up with the ideas while you jot down notes. New information (10-15 mins): in the first two steps, you are gathering prior knowledge and building on it through the new information. You want to discuss your findings openly with your learners from your notes and present possible alternatives for exploration in the new information mini-lesson. Play with ideas (20 mins): present another open-ended task where learners are actively testing out the new information and applying it back to their prior knowledge. This is where they create their own process and product to reflect their understanding up to that point. Reflect (5 mins): learners reflect as a whole group, small group, partners, or individually through discussions, drawings, written ideas, and so forth. It can be quite informal, but reflection is focused on: new connections, prior misconceptions, growth, aha moments, and/or next steps. Unlike homeroom teachers, you may need 1-3 sessions to implement the thinkchat cycle with depth. This is completely normal. The purpose is to give up the control of the learning, so the learners can make sense of the ideas and apply them back to their practice. Don’t worry how long it takes, we are more focused on the process you use. What does this look like in daily lessons?It’s always nice to see something that is presented in an example that makes sense. I’m not a specialist or supporting teacher, so I will do my best. I will try to give you a practical example of what this might look like and you will need to apply it to your practice. EAL Application For most EAL support teachers, they are providing intervention of basic language acquisition and application to the learner’s primary language. This can come in many forms of push-in and pull-out models. I’m going to focus on an inclusive model, where the EAL teacher supports a small group of similar ability learners, including those that are on their caseload. This group has been pre-determined by the EAL and homeroom teacher. The focus of the lesson is to write a paragraph about water conservation. Before the beginning of the lesson, have learners take a notecard (blank or lined side) and draw a line in the middle for note-taking. Pose a question: What does it mean to conserve water? Have some picture cards that show various ways to conserve water at home and in the community. Ask learners to choose and share their connection in their primary or target language. After discussion, use pictures or words to capture their ideas on the left side of the notecard. Warm-up activity: Provide additional picture cards of potential problems. Have learners pair the conservation and problem cards together and discuss their connection in their primary or target language. Afterwards, choose a pair that would solve a problem in their home or community. Use pictures and words to describe how it might help in three ways on the right side of the notecard. New information: Reflect on the unique ideas of how to conserve water and the potential problems that arise. To communicate our ideas effectively, we must put them in order that makes most sense for our audience. The EAL teacher will show some sentences from a paragraph and model which one goes in the right order and why. They will show how the order impacts the meaning of the paragraph. Play with ideas: In small groups, learners will take a look at their notecards and decide how they will write a paragraph together. They will choose one person’s idea and supplement them from other people’s work, as needed. Together, they will write a paragraph that is logical and speaks to the importance of water conservation. Learners will share ideas in their primary or target language, which can be translated for the group, so they feel part of the experience. Each group will share their paragraph with the class. Reflection: Learners will talk in small groups to answer these questions and choose which ones they will share back to the whole group.
Final ThoughtsNow that we have seen it in practice, I wonder how we can apply the structure back to our role. This takes some time and a lot of practice. You will fumble and make mistakes.
One thing I do know, I noticed my learners demonstrating more authentic thinking as I implemented this lesson cycle into my practice. It has been my game changer and I hope it does the same for you. Next up, we will discuss the unique role of inquiry and how it supports agency.
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A couple of years ago, I was noodling on Facebook and we reconnected. She quickly gave me her phone number and we chatted like no time has passed. It's wonderful to speak with a former teacher as a colleague and learn about yourself from their lens. Have fun learning more tidbits below about Ms. Hively, one of the first teachers who ever saw my light. Welcome to the second episode of my new series to support specialist and supporting teachers.
Yuni works as a PYP teacher at the International School Ruhr and is also an IBEN member and concept-based trainer. Yuni provides many contributions online through Toddle App and beyond and I’m so thankful to have her in my professional network. Before we move forward, I want to clarify that these ideas are my personal opinion and not necessarily of the IB. You need to confirm everything with your IB consultant and/or IB world school manager. The ideas I am about to share are based on my experiences and observations. Now let’s get to it! Unique RoleFor many learners, the specialist classes are the only place where learners can just breathe and be themselves. This is a bold statement. I’ve seen hundreds of different school systems through my own personal experiences, leading workshops, and consulting. Even within the IB PYP system, I’ve seen many schools that are so focused on content delivery that they forget to think of the learner in the process. This means that we absolutely need you to better understand your unique role and the power you have to change young people’s lives. I recently heard Ethan Hawke, famed actor, speak about the power of the arts. He purports that people don't consider the arts in everyday life until a crisis enters their lives. Then, they turn to the arts to sort out their thoughts and emotions to make sense of what is happening. I would extend this movement and understanding our bodies. In my lifetime, I saw this the greatest during the pandemic. People soon became interested in bike riding, lifting weights, and using a variety of home-based equipment. Since access to public spaces was limited, people had to become creative in their homes. During this time, the supporting teacher was needed more than ever. As we leveraged online teaching at home, especially for at-risk learners, they leaned into the additional supports. It was the time that parents realized that their child had special learning needs and the power of the role of the teacher. Specialist and supporting teachers help learners to make connections to ideas being explored in a new way. This is power. When a EAL support teacher using the language of the learner profile as a way to describe how a child is learning, this is powerful. When an ICT/computer teacher guides learners to consider how they will use images to help them to make unusual connections, it is powerful. Common planning timeTo make learning more connected, we need to honor common planning time for the specialist and supporting teachers. This can come in two ways: common planning time within the team and with the homeroom teachers. Common planning time as a team helps to bridge the gap between specialist and supporting teachers to the homeroom. They can bounce around ideas with each other about how they will approach teaching the key and related concepts, ATL, and learner profile attributes. We don’t need to know each other’s content to bring HOW we will all approach teaching the skills and big ideas of the unit. This is often lost when there is no common team planning time. Where can we get the time? Staff meetings. There are so many ideas that are shared in a staff meeting that only pertains to the homeroom teacher like progress monitoring, response to intervention, testing, etc. Look at the agenda items and plan the whole group first and then allow specialist and supporting teachers to go off to plan together. Consider how the coordinator will lead the first session, so they can share some pedagogical ideas and model best practice. During the second portion of the staff meeting, the coordinator and the specialist and supporting teachers can break off into their planning session. The coordinator can set a learning target and the group can co-create a success criteria. The group divides and begins to plan through the unit focus(es). The coordinator can circulate to answer questions and clear up misconceptions. Did I just hear you sigh out of happiness? We just need to manage our time differently. As humans, we are inherently driven to connect and make connections. It’s unfair that specialist and supporting teachers don’t have equal amounts of time to collaborate. It establishes a hierarchy of importance when there is an imbalance. Of course, there is always shared preparation time to reinforce the planning, but we can’t always rely upon it. I’ve seen so many specialist teachers lose their planning time to cover homeroom teachers who were out. Not good, Once again, it establishes that the specialist and supporting teachers are not as important and don’t deserve their planning time. Yikes! Professional developmentYour role as a specialist and supporting teacher is different. You have unique professional learning needs. I think it is wonderful to get a baseline of the PYP programme by taking a category 1 workshop. You get a big picture of how the programme operates and how it might drive your role. Oftentimes, the learning ends here, although there are so many different options. The category 2 and 3 workshops begin to delve into specifics about different parts of the programme, such as inquiry and learning for conceptual understanding. Equally, there are specific workshops that lean into learning, diversity, and inclusion, the role of the arts, the role of subjects, just to name a few. When you are ready to make deeper connections, consider taking the What is an IB education series. These workshops help us to deeply understand how to leverage the approaches to learning (ATL) across the programme, how to investigate through the lens of inquiry, and so forth. Advocate for your role through professional development. Continually seek ways to embed the program into your practice, instead of the other way around. It’s not as separated as you might think. Deconstructing planning in the PYPOne of the biggest questions for many specialists is how do I plan authentically? We are going to break apart different parts of the unit planner and plan them through your unique roles. I will give you examples in various roles, so you have a clearer picture.
I have already completed this process in my ATL series. I've had the priviledge of meeting many fabulous educators in my lifetime. Denise Kraft is in the top 10. She truly is an amazing person, friend, mom, and educator. She had a dream of hosting Kath Murdoch at her campus for a training, which morphed into a conference. Below, we are attending the very first Spear Center inquiry conference with Kath Murdoch, Trevor MacKenzie, Kimberly Mitchell, and Stephanie Harvey. It was an incredible experience that I will never forget and I had my new friend with me. How did we meet? Denise was a participant in an online workshop that I led for the PYP Exhibition. Then, she joined a book club that I co-hosted and a sketch club. We soon began to realize that our dreams for the future were the same. Here is my shout-out to Denise for being the amazing educator that she is at the Lawrence School in Middletown, CT. Welcome to our new series about specialist and supporting teachers.
Myths about specialist and supporting teachers.I have worked with many teachers over the past three years as an independent consultant leading many official IB workshops. I have unraveled many misconceptions about how you might feel in your role. Let’s take a moment to clarify the big picture of your roles. Myth 1: You are an add-on to the program When I get to chat with a group of specialist and supporting teachers, they often feel like an add-on to the program, rather than a vital part of extending the learning. This usually comes about, because there is not enough planning time between homeroom and specialist and supporting teachers. Most of the schools I have worked with have the same obstacle: the homeroom teachers plan the units when specialist and supporting teachers have their students.. This is a universal problem. I have seen this schedule in a range of private,international, and public/state schools. Having been a coordinator, I had the same schedule in my school. I didn’t like it, but it was the only option for homeroom teachers to plan regularly. But the situation had me think differently of how our collaboration might look. Myth 2: You have to request access unit planning documents All of the PYP planning documents are available to all teachers in the school. This sounds like a given, but I have met many specialist and supporting teachers who have to request access for the documents, oftentimes from the homeroom teacher. This creates an imbalance of power, as specialist and supporting teachers are made to feel like they are not part of the planning process. Having access to the planning documents part of the IB Programme Standards and Practices, which the rubric that schools follow for authorization and evaluation. Our goal is to make authentic and meaningful transdisciplinary connections between all the subjects, so document access crucial to the process. Myth 3: Shared planning sessions Most schools will complete a speed dating every quarter or half of year to see where their content will connect with the homeroom. We need more systematic and regular planning sessions between the specialist and supporting team with the homeroom teachers. This can happen at staff meetings and professional development days as well. When we speak of transdisciplinary learning, most teachers think it’s across their homeroom content. The definition is across all disciplines, which includes specialist and supporting teachers. Planning sessions must include your unique content focus when writing central ideas, lines of inquiry, concepts, ATL, and learner profile attributes. If you are not part of the planning process from the beginning, it makes it more difficult to connect when handed curriculum documents. Oftentimes, the big ideas do not connect as well as could have been part of the conversation from the beginning. Myth 4: Content Coverage The role of the specialist teacher is NOT to teach the homeroom curriculum. Instead, the specialist classes extend the learning and provide an additional way to explore the conceptual central idea, lines of inquiry, concepts, ATL, and learner profile attributes. Imagine a learner going through their specialist classes and seeing examples of the same ideas as their homeroom. It’s a wonderful way to bring the learning and provide a wider lens of how the big idea can be explored in all parts of learning, not just the academic. Supporting teachers have a different role, because most of the time you are providing remediation for learners who are not able to access the grade level curriculum. Oftentimes, this comes in prescribed programs that must be taught in order. There is still room to connect with the concepts, ATL, and learner profile attributes. It’s about using them frugally, but repeatedly, so learners make connections between their practice and the big ideas. Next StepsThis podcast series will address these issues and more as we navigate how to make your roles more connected to the unit of inquiry planning process. There will be other issues that arise as we get into the flow of ideas.
My friend, Yuni Santosa, provided many ideas to consider as we move through this podcast series that I will address as well. More ideas the merrier. Every week, I will create a post looking for your ideas that I can embed into the next episode. I want this to be quite interactive and based on your current needs. Let's get ready to support our teachers that meet with all the learners within a school. This requires us to see things through a different lens, which is why my avatar is wearing special glasses. It's not out of confusion, but the challenge of meeting the needs of multiple learners at a given time. It can be a lot, yet so rewarding. I have felt like some of the ideas in my podcast were not designed with you in mind, so this is my chance to make up for it. I'm super excited to get started! Don't ask, but one of the places I've always wanted to visit is Akron, Ohio. I finally got the chance by presenting the IB workshop: Engaging Collaborative Communities. The community is experiencing some change, but the spirit is high. The participants were eager to learn and apply back to their practice. This is the dream of a workshop leader. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Akron, which is a hidden artistic gem in the Midwest. If you have a chance to visit, go there. Have you ever met a person online that you consider a friend? That sounds like such a strange notion, but does it in a post Zoom world? A couple years ago, I met with Kirsten as she requested an online chat for a Toddle event. I had put on my vision board that I would present at a Toddle event. She made that happen two years in advance. I still can't believe it. More importantly, our chat revealed that a kindred spirit existed on the other side of the world from me. We are so aligned on so many things related to education and enjoy life to the fullest. I can't wait until the day that we get to meet in person. Until then, enjoy my thoughts about Kirsten and hopefully you will become friends with her too. |
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