Whistling men in yellow vans, they came and drew us diagrams; showed us how it all worked out and wrote it down, in case of doubt (The Housemartins)

Photo by Pedro Miranda on Unsplash

Currently, we are chewing over plans for a remodeling of the senior school's Learning Centre and staff workroom.

This part - meetings about what staff want, meetings with the architect and trust members around what the budget allows, considering which ideas from the architect work best and so on, is always a slightly unnerving experience, as decisions eventually need to be made with compromises just part of the process.

At such times, I am reminded of the maxim from Velocity that no good joke survives a committee of six. Basically the  point being that, in education, schools who want to improve, who want to make a gear change from great to outstanding, can't do so via consensus.

One of the joys of working at OneSchool Global is an acceptance that we need to make the best kind of decision at the time. We also learn from the past.

A frustration in some campuses is some cost compromise on acoustics. That has made me very aware of the need in our remodeling for ceiling tiles and wall coverings (including insulation) that absorb the sound of 60 teenagers. 

The bottom line: I can confidently predict that the planning/decision making process will be a relatively short one. In the meantime - consultation!

Buenos dias good senor, I've never been down here before (John Hanlon)

Photo by Sebastian Dumitru
on Unsplash

Back to school for the start of Term 3 this week and we'll resume the quest to improve our results and engage students.

It's actually harder than you think to do both those things.

I was reading an interesting article about this and it seems 
there is often a tradeoff between "good teaching" where students learn stuff and "good teaching" that engages students.

Researchers found that teachers who were good at raising test scores tended to receive low student evaluations. Teachers with great student evaluations tended not to raise test scores all that much.

Basically: the teachers and the teaching practices that can increase test scores often are not the same as those that improve student-reported engagement. Doing both is rare!

That's a dilly of a pickle is it not?

The researchers did find a small number (6 out of 53) teachers who managed both to have high engagement ratings and improved test scores.

Here's what those 6 did differently:

• These teachers often had students working together collaboratively in pairs or groups, using tactile objects to solve problems or play games.  
• These doubly “good” teachers had another thing in common: they maintained orderly classrooms with thoughtful, efficient routines.
• They had a good sense of pacing and understood the limits of children’s attention spans.

What you do for yourself dies with you when you leave this world, what you do for others lives on forever (Sir Ken Robinson)

Second week of the term break and I'm still thinking about Sir Ken Robinson. While browsing in Annie's Bookshop at the Peregian Beach shopping centre, I noticed a book by Sir Ken and his daughter. Glancing at it, I was again reminded of his on-going influence. He left quite a legacy!

What I especially love about his thinking is the way he mentions the past, but looks to the future:

One of the essential problems for education is that most countries subject their schools to the fast-food model of quality assurance when they should be adopting the Michelin model instead. The future for education is not in standardizing but in customizing; not in promoting groupthink and “deindividuation” but in cultivating the real depth and dynamism of human abilities of every sort.

We've still got a long way to go, Sir Ken, but we're working on it! 

Homework

Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash

On holiday in Noosa, Queensland, Australia and leaving this post in the capable hands of Sir Ken:

"When my son, James, was doing homework for school, he would have five or six windows open on his computer, Instant Messenger was flashing continuously, his cell phone was constantly ringing, and he was downloading music and watching the TV over his shoulder. I don’t know if he was doing any homework, but he was running an empire as far as I could see, so I didn’t really care".

Sir Ken Robinson (The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything)

No one I think is my tree (The Beatles)

Photo by Mark McGregor on Unsplash

“What can I do to get my students to put in the effort needed, persevere through setbacks, and build tools to be independent learners?”

I'm not alone it seems, in asking this question, as it leads off a recent Edutopia article.

How to sustain effort and focus has been the most pressing question in Term 2, especially relevant for a handful of students (six, to be precise).

To sum up - the article points to these tips to help students relate to their learning (my commentary is in blue): 

Provide learner clarity. At OSG the Assignment covers what the teacher needs to teach and what the learner needs to learn. It includes success criteria.

Sustain motivation (self reflection as you go on the usefulness of the material to their lives, their future careers, or the careers of professionals they admire) 

Consult with students. I'd add 'and their parents' - which we did recently with some targeted meetings. Part of those meetings was a return to the goals set in January and a pulse taking exercise.

Remind students how to get help when blocked. At OSG we use the 'Learning Pit' analogy. 
 
Have students create progress journals. At OSG we use progress checkpoints for on-going feedback and goal progress.  

Check in intentionally. My aim is to build on success and positivity (avoiding the dark side). We check in weekly with our most at risk students.
 
Complete effort-to-progress graphs. A variety of effort-to-progress graphs are available online to assist incremental goal progress. 

So, how are we doing? There is no doubt that these things help. Self-directedness doesn't mean you leave them to it! We will just need to keep at in Terms 3 and 4.

Did this meeting of our minds together, ooh, happen just today, some way? (Chicago)

Photo by Ana Municio on Unsplash

A phrase that has long been adopted by OneSchool Global, is 'Learning To Learn'.

It's a key attribute to have for life. In a way it symbolises all of those soft skills that are so important post compulsory schooling. 

Employers are not necessarily interested in what you did in a Year 11 mathematics assessment, but they do want you to be adaptable, use your initiative, have integrity, problem solve and ask questions.

Neil Postman says this in his seminal work, Teaching As A Subversive Activity, on the value of questions: 

"Once you have learned to ask questions – relevant and appropriate and substantial questions – you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know."