CONNECTIONS: Disruptive Thinking
This guest blog post was written by the amazing Rik Rowe (@RoweRikW)
The majority of Eric Sheninger’s Disruptive Thinking encourages the reader to rethink the learning, rethink the learner, and rethink our mindset. This brings about greater passion for the learners and the educator as we focus more on our culture for learning and a new culture of thinking. To better prepare our learners for their future, we’re aligning much of the guidance in Eric’s Disruptive Thinking. Our learners are so engaged this year! We believe that some of that engagement is due to how we’re disrupting their thinking, how glad they are to be back in person learning together, and how much fun we have learning high school math. We appreciate that Eric encourages us to see our kids as learners, not just as students. This is changing our mindset to engage in more thinking and learning, not merely doing.
Eric reminds us to start with our why (from Simon Sinek) and our philosophy for learning as we rethink what learning can look like to bring about more inspiring experiences. He encourages us to rethink why we facilitate learning, creating opportunities to learn, relate, and integrate concepts that empower our learners to truly engage. We can ask the right questions to cultivate a thinking culture and create environments that our learners really need and want to prepare them for their future.
The author encourages us to know our learners: their gaps, their needs, and their challenges so we can better create learning opportunities that engage thinking, chase growth (not perfection), personalize the learning and bring out the awe in our day-to-day learning. We get to know our learners by understanding what they bring to our learning environment from past years, past courses, the courses on their current caseload, and the extra curricular activities in which they engage. We make weekly #GoodCallsHome to connect with their parents to better support our learners and our learning. Eric reminds us that involving families is a vital component of empowering greater learning.
He suggests we find the connectedness in our content to bring about greater understanding, to integrate concepts, to find the relevance to drive thinking and to create opportunities that encourage thinking through play. We create more visual learning, more Tic-Tac-Toe learning opportunities and BINGO games to bring about more play, competition, and fun. Our Learners are regularly at the board. They are teaching. They’ve asked to have their voices take up 80% of our class time where my voice they’ve capped at about 20%! Actually, they tell us they learn so much more when they are doing the thinking, speaking, and applying themselves.
To best use our time in class together, Eric reminds us to give the beginning, middle, and end more significance and delineation. The first 5-10 minutes creates engagement, hooking our learners and offering them a sense of where we’re headed. Eric guides us to recognize that technology can be incorporated during a Do Now, a Check For Understanding, or an Exit Ticket. We use Google Forms and project visuals on the board to make learning more visible. The middle portion of our class includes time for our Learners to ask their questions, time for them to engage in independent practice, and time for them to get feedback through thinking and questioning. The last 5-10 minutes should bring about some closure to the goals of the day. This is a great time for a formative assessment or Exit Ticket that checks for understanding and offers the opportunity for our learners to apply their thinking and ultimately get feedback before class ends. Our learners often correct their Exit Tickets before they leave and jot themselves notes as to where they might want to improve during our next class.
The main portion of our class time is best designed using Universal Design for Learning where all learners can individually understand and connect to the learning since we’re minimizing all barriers to learning. To bring out the best in our learners, we encourage them to lead the learning, let their questions drive our thinking and learning, and offer them time to practice the learning while we are available to provide them guidance.
In closing, Eric reminds us to let our learners see how much we care about them and collaborate with them to unlock their potential. When we do, our learners can reach and exceed their potential to unleash their greatness!
Thanks so much to Rik for this blog post and to all educators reading this for the amazing work you are doing during these challenging times. As always, Teach and Lead with Passion...
Jeff and Jimmy
DAILY INSPIRATION EDUCATOR
(Please let us know about an inspiring educator you think we should highlight in a future newsletter by completing this brief form!)
FEATURED BOOK!
The 6 Literacy Levers: Creating a Community of Readers by Brad Gustafson (Twitter: @GustafsonBrad)
The 6 Literacy Levers is a game changer! We cannot wait for you to read this book by one of our favorite educators and servant leaders, Dr. Brad Gustafson. If you are a leader in any capacity with a desire to promote reading and literacy in your classroom, school, or district, this book is for you! The 6 Literacy Levers is designed to empower leaders in classrooms, libraries, offices, and every space in between. It includes ideas and strategies to support educators at every level because leadership isn’t reserved solely for those who hold a specific job title. There isn’t a single reader in your school who doesn’t deserve to be seen, supported, and included. This book includes levers and cautionary advice to help you respond to practices that could damage, diminish, or exclude any of the readers you serve. Literacy leaders have a responsibility to serve on behalf of all readers and this book will help you do just that.
This book is for any educator who wants to grow as a literacy leader.
This book will empower teams to initiate conversations that will take the work deeper.
This book explores six literacy levers that will help you push the field forward while creating more enriching reading experiences for the readers you serve.
This book will equip you with actionable ideas and the research needed to activate change.
Filled with inspiring stories and practical advice and strategies, The 6 Literacy Levers is
a book that will transform the literacy culture wherever you serve. We are so honored to
partner with Brad on this important book. Learn more here.
FEATURED BOOKS!
Daily Inspiration for Educators: Positive Thoughts for Every Day of the Year, Volume I and II by Jimmy Casas.
These books include daily variations on the “Thoughts for the Day” Casas has shared over the past years. Also included are sayings found elsewhere, some of which are hundreds of years old and others found only recently, including quotes from other ConnectEDD books. The goal of the “Daily Inspiration” books is that in some small way, these daily thoughts will provide hope, validation, and inspiration to some of the most inspiring people in the world: hard working education professionals. Serving as a professional educator is so important that we must commit to doing whatever it takes to ensure that every child achieves success each and every day we serve. It is noble work, indeed. But it is difficult work with many daily challenges and disappointments. Daily Inspiration for Educators can serve as a resource that motivates and inspires educators during times of joy as well as when things get tough--as we know they will periodically in a profession as important and challenging as ours. These books make a great gift idea for educators! Now available and more info here!
CONNECTEDD’S TAKEAWAYS:
Thought for the Day: ““Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone." Gladys Bronwyn Stern
Teaching Technique to Try: People’s Assembly: A people’s assembly is a powerful process, which gives students the opportunity to review and discuss a topic, text, or question before feeding their ideas back to the class. Students work in groups and take turns to share their ideas, using hand signals to communicate with and respond to each other. Check out this link from Facing History and Ourselves for a step-by-step process for using this technique.
Eyes On Culture: We believe that culture is a true difference maker in any classroom, school, district, or organization. As a result, we focus much of the work we do on creating and maintaining positive and productive cultures. Culture Focus: Humility. High performing schools with strong cultures are places in which educators working together exhibit what Jim Collins calls a paradoxical combination of personal humility plus professional will. Such educators are driven to succeed and are relentless in accomplishing goals and achieving success. Their “professional will” is evident in the way they teach, facilitate meetings, interact with students and colleagues, design lessons, deliver professional learning, manage operations, and a host of other responsibilities. Nothing will get in their way when they set out to accomplish a task and they do so in an excellent manner. Yet, as driven to succeed as these educators are, they are also humble people, often shining the spotlight away from themselves and onto the students they teach or the staff members they lead. They exude supreme confidence in completing the tasks in front of them and the obstacles in their way that must be overcome, yet they are neither arrogant nor cocky. Their confidence is admirable because it is less about confidence in themselves and more about the confidence they have in the vision of the team and the ability of the team to achieve the vision. They look out the window to assign praise and look in the mirror when assigning blame when things go amiss. They certainly care about themselves and have high self esteem, yet as C. S. Lewis wisely remarked when discussing humility, they do not think less of themselves; rather, they think of themselves less, focusing on others and the team as a whole.
What are some other thoughts you have on professional will and personal humility in classrooms and schools? Please share your thoughts about a culture and gratitude via Twitter: @ConnectEDDBooks We would love to hear from you!