Alumni in Education Homecoming Event

Hey, this is just a reminder that you can register for the Alumni in Education Homecoming Event on September 24. All you have to do is go to the following link and find the affinity events and then register. It is easy AND fun. Do it so you do not forget.

For this event, we will be focusing on three things:

1. There will be a lot of smaller groups discussions around some of the topics that have been raised on recent webinars and informal conversations. After the smaller discussions, groups will report out to the larger group.

2. There will be time for networking with others who have similar jobs: k-12 teachers, administrators, higher education professionals, and professionals in industries like publishing, testing, marketing and tech. We all know that we do not get enough time for real sharing with people who have similar jobs but do not work with us.

3. We will be welcoming and getting to know members of the current Teacher Education Program at HC. They will be full participants. We hope we can give them an idea of who we are, what we do, and how we might be able to help or even mentor them.

This is a lot on our plate for two hours, but it can be a great start to great things for the Alumni in Education group. No panels, not much being talked to. Just the chance for a lot of dedicated people to share. 

Also, we have a sponsor for the refreshments, so it would be great to have an early and full sign up for the event. Please use the link below to get yourselves registered. I hope to see many of you there. 

http://www.holycross.edu/homecoming

Changes

Who is making a significant change in their job description or their job location this fall (or recently)?
Tell us what that change is and how you are looking forward to it.

Some Random Thoughts

Hey.

Still waiting for people to respond to some of the questions I have put out there this week. Come on. What are you waiting for? Then I can weigh in as well.

Had an administrators retreat this week in my district and new teacher orientation today. Looks like the school year will happen in Fitchburg this year, starting September 1. Kind of excited because empty schools over the summer can be depressing.

I am working with a sub-group of administrators in my district to see how we can better meet student needs. AT my school we do SEL really well, but I am anxious to raise the bar further academically. My district also has invested a lot of money in some on line platforms for this year, I hope to help my teachers leverage those.

Here is a question for teachers 9-12, if you could get one piece of ongoing PD this year, what would it be in?

My kids love back to school shopping for binders, pens, highlighters and the like. Not so into clothes shopping for school, but having that new folder seems to be exciting to them, even in 11th and 8th grades.

Even if there are user fees, extracurricular activities (sports, art, drama, debate, etc) are some of the best values in education. So much better and more convenient that the alternatives. Why would any city or town allow its schools to drop such programming?

I am interested in what kind of debate will come out of the charter school vote this November in Massachusetts.

Speaking of, John Oliver's piece on charter schools is amusing and a bit disturbing. I think it paints charter schools with too broad a brush, however.

Looking forward to Holy Cross Move-In Day tomorrow. We'll see how I feel about it on Sunday.

Coffee should be the Official Drink of Educators. (sorry tea drinkers)

If you can make it, please sign up for and attend the Homecoming Networking event for Alumni in Education on September 24.

Back to School

So with a new school year just around the corner, we are all, no matter the level of teaching or administering, or no matter what type of support we give, all wondering how to do this coming year better. Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Better enrichment opportunities for my students. Each Friday, we have built in time to have speakers some in to present on job skills careers, financial literacy, nutrition, cooking, college programs, etc. My goal this year is to broaden our offerings so that students look forward to most Fridays as a hugely integral part of what they do here.

If you have something you can offer high school students who are looking at their futures coming at them fast, please contact me, and I will book you.

2. Better curriculum maps for my teachers. The better planned the academic program, the better the whole experience will be for the students.

3. Make pathways work. We are piloting a program with the Mount Wachusett Community College Advanced Manufacturing Program this year to provide career pathways for students. When we make this work, it will serve to inform our pathways next year in hospitality, business, biotechnology, health and communications.

4. Build stronger relationships with students.

What do you plan to do better or differently this year?

Questions from the Webinars

First, thanks to those who participated in the Webinars yesterday. Good to meet some of you. Even better to get a sense of where people are in education. Lots of you are not in k-12 settings, and I think that current HC students need to know about your backgrounds and what your journeys have been like. Try to be there to share on September 24.

Still waiting for responses to yesterday's question of the day. I want to see at leas one response before I give my own.

A couple more questions were generated yesterday, and I want to put them out there:

1. How do we work to give students 24/7 access to education without abdicating our responsibility as educators to teach and assess learning?

2. How are teacher prep programs addressing the changes that are happening as a result of Khan Academies and other on-line learning sites?

3. Why doesn't k-12 education interact better with higher ed?

4. Are we teaching prospective teachers enough about the "soft skills" teachers need? What are these essential skills? How do we make sure that these are taught?

5. How can we best help people network within their own interests (k-12, higher ed, industry, non-profits, etc)?

6. How do we get everyone to embrace data more, especially when it informs us of what we need to do better?

Interesting article about taking a sabbatical from teaching

Diary of a Techy Teacher: Why I’m Taking a One-Year Sabbatical with BetterLesson

Question of the Day,August 17

I will probably post on this tomorrow, but it sure would be great to get some responses.

You can do one thing in your school/district/company this year that is completely different. Cost is not a limitation, what is it that you would do to improve learning?

Tough Mudder

In case you were worried, I survived my Tough Mudder up in NH this weekend. Somehow Saturday turned out to be the mild and pleasant day stuck between a bunch of oppressive ones. Had some leg cramps, but that just makes the experience that much more fun when you are climbing a rope to get over a wall.

What was great was seeing all the elements of a tremendous learning environment on display all day. We had a steady stream of obstacles thrown at us. Each of the obstacles required some thinking, some coordinating of responsibilities, collaboration, sacrifice, some overcoming of fear and doubt, and the necessity of making sure that everyone succeeded, even people not in our group. In fact, a bunch of the obstacles require that many groups work together to help everyone succeed. We helped others face their fears. We shared each other's personal successes.  We encouraged everyone else we could on the course. When I have done team building and leadership development with students at challenge courses and National Guard camps, I have worked to have these same results.

I believe that everyone came out of the Tough Mudder a bit better inside than when they came. I have some interesting bruises and sore areas, but I loved every second of the experience (except when I got cramps in both hamstrings at the same time). How do we strive to make learning experiences for students that rich and valuable when we teach them English, Math and Science?

The Importance of Challenge

Tomorrow, I will be participating in my fourth, annual Tough Mudder. I will be slogging through mud, climbing, running, jumping, swinging, and probably falling all over Loudon, NH in an effort to get me and my team mates to the finish line. This is all while I am rapidly approaching my 55th birthday. So, why am I doing this?

Tough Mudder has become my excuse for trying to stay fit. It has become a way for me to challenge myself to keep trying new things and even do some things that might be risky for me. I need challenges in my life, as does everyone.

This is something we need to really be conscious of as educators. Students do not need grades. They really do not need worksheets or easy to do and correct assignments. They need challenges. They should be going into classes every day wondering what will happen in those classes rather than knowing what the routines will be in each. We grow best when we face a variety of challenges, physically, mentally and spiritually. So, I ask each time I go in to a class to observe how well the teacher is challenging their students and how well the teacher is addressing/pulling back the least engaged student in the class.

By challenge, I do not mean making things hard on students or making their brains explode. By challenge I mean getting them engaged and really thinking about what they are learning so that they do learn. Making things hard often does little more than turn more students off. I would like to think that students worked extremely hard for me, but they did so because they were engaged and willing to push themselves.

I think we also need to challenge students in more ways than just academics. Do we have enough opportunities for students in our schools to engage in problem solving activities, collaborative projects, and fast paced thinking? Something I love to do on occasion is to create an Amazing Race for students and faculty who want to participate. They create teams, choose colors and make a team name. Then, on the day of the race, they have to work with their teams to "go around the world/country" and get through the obstacles I have created for them. These may include such things as memorizing a song,  doing a Bollywood dance, creating a sky scraper with balloons and tape, eating a cupcake with no hands, bouncing around a track with beach balls between their legs, solving Sudoku puzzles, or doing a Muscle Beach pose off. Through these events, students find that fitness matters, intelligence matters, but creativity, positive energy and team work matter more. Most of the time, the students and teachers who do these activities end up more involved in school and in class.

What are the challenges that are important to you? Do they energize you or drag you down?  

Creating Partnerships

Yesterday, I spent a few hours with the Industrial Readiness Training program at Mount Wachusett Community College's Devens Campus. At Goodrich Academy, we have what they need (18+ year old students who want to look at career pathways). They have what we need: possible career pathways for our students. The job is for us to pull everything together and create a program that will work for all of us in such a way that we can create more pathways with other programs. This is the start of a partnership that can actually help everyone involved. We are also throwing in there a growing relationship with the Chamber of Commerce so that they can help us establish internships and work study opportunities in the areas we are piloting. I think this is essential.

I have been to so many conferences where higher education or employers speak to the fact that high school students are coming to them unprepared for the expectations that they will have on those graduates. A lot gets said at these conferences, but little is really solved because there needs to be direct conversation between the parties.

Yesterday, I started the meeting with MWCC with the question, "if I want my students to succeed in this program, what knowledge and skills do they need coming in?" The reps from MWCC were surprised and pleased that I actually wanted to know this, but they quickly came up with a short list of essentials. Then, I was able to share with them what I hoped my students would get from their program, and they were able to check those boxes. Next week, when I meet with the Chamber of Commerce, I will ask some of the same things.

We all want our students to come out of high school or college fully prepared for what comes next. we know that partnerships will help them do so. What I am finding as very important is that this becomes a valuable moment to share with partners who we have and how we can work together to meet their needs. I want a great experience for my students, but I also want to know for sure that the students I send out to the world are ready for that world. These partnerships will help.

What partnerships are occurring that you know about? How do they work? How could they work better?

Parent Involvement

Grappling with notions of parent involvement

I am contributing to this blog to share some thoughts on parent involvement and reasons to develop a meaningful parent involvement program as well as to seek your experiences with successful parent involvement programs.  The impetus for writing this emerges from conversations with middle school administrators who received negative feedback from a recent district-wide parent survey.

I bring to this topic my own beliefs that the relationships parents have with their children affects the students' school experience.  In addition, the feelings that parents have towards education and the school and the kind of role that parents play in the educational process also impact students’ school performance.  From my perspective as an educator and one who wants my students to achieve school success, it is essential that I involve parents.

I have been researching parent involvement and have learned quite a bit on what I thought was a simple formula:  just get parents involved, make regular positive connections with parents, show parents that you care about their student!  Yet, after reading Hoover-Dempsey’s research, I realized that parents become involved for many reasons.  I contend that if we know, understand and address these reasons, we will be more likely to create and maintain a successful parent involvement program. 

Some parents believe that it is their role and duty as a parent to be involved in their student’s educational experience; others hold the belief that their involvement positively affects their student’s school success.   There are parents that only get involved when they are invited to an activity by the school and if they perceive the school as a welcoming place.  Often it takes a special invitation by a teacher or a heartfelt request by their own student to have some parents attend events.  It is also important to consider that there are parents who have time and resources which allow for involvement. I also see that some parents deem themselves qualified with specific content skills to actively support their student.

These reasons for and types of involvement are all very different.  I wonder if we, as educators, are considering this diversity of parent perspective when we develop initiatives for increasing parent involvement. 

Here are some questions that I ask myself and the group of colleagues working together with me on this goal:

•     what do we define as meaningful parent involvement?
•       how do we intentionally embark on a program to get the kind of involvement that we want?
•       do we need to adjust our approach to parent involvement as the family structure has changed?

More specifically, I am also posing these guiding questions:

• if we know that there are parents who think they can help their child succeed, what are we doing to increase their efficacy so that they maintain or increase their commitment?
• what do we do to create a school which is welcoming to parents?

There are many more questions that I want answered in order to launch an effective parent involvement program.  I am looking forward to reading your responses and learning from them.  I have included the source below if you are interested reading more research on parent involvement.

Eileen Melody

Hoover‐Dempsey, K., Walker, J., Sandler, H., Whetsel, D., Green, C., Wilkins, A., & Closson, K. (2005). Why Do Parents Become Involved? Research Findings and Implications. The Elementary School Journal, 106(2), 105-130. doi:1. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/499194 doi:1

Webinar

Hey.

There is still time to register for the Alumni in Education Webinar next week. Please go to the following link for details>

http://www.alumni.holycross.edu/s/1380/15/indexnonav.aspx?sid=1380&gid=1&pgid=3013&content_id=3546

This will be a great chance for us to talk live and start to really network.  Also, since we are planning a live event in September, you can have a voice in what tat will look like. There will be two times for the Webinar: 10 and 7. It is on August 17.

We have 20 people attending as of right now, so we have room for a few more. Sign up while there is still time.

Participate.

My Children in a Foreign Country 2

Another thing that occurred to us this trip was to ask the kids to put together the albums for the trip. Of great interest to me has been the fact that they focus the albums on the people they are interacting with and the offbeat things they saw and got pictures of. Sure, we have pictures of the major ´laces we visited, but they are mainly the backdrop for the pictures of themselves and the relatives we were with on a particular day.  They also include a lot of pictures of locals we met.

Also, when we have asked over the course of this vacation what they have liked most, invariably they have spoken of moments rather than the things they saw. They liked it when we all ate somewhere or when I said something that was informative, funny or out of frustration. They liked it when their mother tried on certain hats at the market.

What I think I have learned is that it is important to see as much as possible on a trip, but it is even more important to share a trip with others. to eat local foods, to make cultural connections and to leave teenagers time to really get a sense of something on their own.

I love Ecuador, for any and all of its faults, it is an amazing place with awesome people. But, while I admired the improvements to the roads and infrastructure, my daughter asked why so much had been invested in Quito while the rest of the country was often stuck in the past and how that was unfair. My son noticed the huge interest people had in conversation about the US elections. This interest has made him more interested in them. They both noticed that there is too much emphasis on the Spanish and less on the indigenous history, so we found as much as we could about the native peoples and all learned a lot.

Given the same places, I have a much greater sense of Ecuador now than I did 20 years ago because my children allowed me to see through their eyes, and I did not force my own views or a tour´s views on them. For this, I am grateful.  Now we have to get their cousins up to Boston to finish this mini exchange.

My Children in a Foreign Country

So, we are winding down our trip to Ecuador. We come back Wednesday into Thursday. A few more sights and a little more extended family. Here are some of the things I have learned from observing my children (15 and 13).

Context is important with everything we see. We have been good about sharing what we know about each place we go. She has a Lonely Planet Guide. We also have visited most places with my wife's cousins, who live down here, and they have added perspective. But, yesterday, we visited Mount Cotopaxi, which is a phenomenal active volcano with a perfect cone and a snow covered top. It had recently erupted, so we could not do any climbing, but it was breathtaking. She had the background on that, so she was fine. Then, we went to the Quilotoa Crater which is a lagoon in a dormant volcano. Clara came away angry that we had traveled all that way to see it because she did not know anything about it. When we came back to the apartment, I looked up info about it, and she then was able to appreciate what she saw. Click.

Finding a partner for kids is great. We are very lucky that there ar cousins the same age as my kids. They have gone to many places with us, and they have given great perspective to my children. Both the cousins speak English, and they push my children to speak more and more Spanish. When we go places together, the kids are a bit separate and bonding. You do not get this on a tour.

It is important for young people to try the "platos tipicos" of the country they are in. We have been to dinner at a few houses, where the food has all been Ecuadorian. When we have gone to restaurants, the food has also been Ecuadorian. My son really has enjoyed most of what he has eaten. My daughter tries things and likes most but not all. Why in doubt, she can always have bread or ham and cheese. However, we have not been to American places. Again, their cousins push them to try things and will also predict what they will like and dislike.

No tours. We have found out everything we can about most places we have been. Then, we move at our pace. When family is with us, they give us perspective. When we are alone, we figure it out. This way, we also have had to ask for help from Ecuadorians, and we have benefitted from that. This way, we can also change itinerary to match how the kids feel each day. My son currently wants no  more museums. Got it.

We are staying in an apartment. We have to go to the grocery store or the bakery for food. We have to prepare meals for ourselves. We need to learn the area. It would be better for my children if they were hosted by their cousins, but the logistics did not work because of traffic and distance, but we would make it work next time. Then the kids could all bond really well.

More later...