Archive for the ‘Leadership Books’ Category
Thursday, May 7th, 2015
On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting ©2015 by Thomas R. Guskey explains to all teachers why their grading practices are probably wrong for many reasons. If you teach or know teachers you need to share this book. Click the icon at the bottom of any page to get this essential book.
Thomas R. Guskey
- Thomas is Professor of Educational Psychology in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky. A graduate of the University of Chicago, he began his career in education as a middle school teacher, served as an administrator in Chicago Public Schools, and was the first Director of the Center for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning. He is the author/editor of 18 books and over 200 articles. Dr. Guskey served on the Policy Research Team of the National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future, on the Task Force to develop the National Standards for Staff Development, and recently was named a Fellow in the American Educational Research Association. His books include Developing Standards-Based Report Cards (2010), Practical Solutions for Serious Problems in Standards-Based Grading (Ed.) (2009), The Principal as Assessment Leader (Ed.) (2009), The Teacher as Assessment Leader (Ed.) (2009), and Benjamin S. Bloom: Portraits of an Educator (Ed.) (2006).
1. Define the Purpose of Grades
- Guskey finds that there is little in the way of formal teacher preparation that deals with this subject. Teachers, therefore, tend to grade the way they were graded. As for report cards, they are usually cobbled together by a committee that takes what they like from other schools’ work. The process features enough compromise that everyone ends up with report cards that everyone can stand, but that no one really likes.
- If you want to reform your reporting process the first thing you should do is step back and ask what is your purpose. There might be many and it is likely that no single reporting instrument will serve all your purposes well. While schools and policy makers aim for success by all, if that really happened there would be no variation in grades. This doesn’t happen and teachers and test makers set out to sort students and they tend to be very successful. Bottom line is that your reporting process should be aimed at facilitating student learning. Guskey recommends that whatever your purpose is, it should be printed on your report.
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Monday, April 2nd, 2018
Out of Our Minds: The Power of Being Creative by Sir Ken Robinson explains how much of today’s education is standardized and how we need to make it much more personal in nature. He believes that everyone has a creative capacity and that it’s the schools’ job to facilitate imagination, creativity, and innovation for all. Leaders and teachers in education and all in walks of life should read this book.
1. Out of Our Minds
- As change becomes more frantic, the more creative we need to be. Most organizations recognize this. Unfortunately, while most children think they are creative, most adults think they are not. In this book, Sir Ken takes on why it is essential to promote creativity, the problems with doing so, and how to do it. First, we rely on our imagination to bring to mind things that are not present to our senses. Creativity then is the process of developing original ideas that have value, and innovation is the process of putting new ideas into practice. Everyone has creative capacities. The challenge is to develop them.
- There is a consensus among people in business that they want people who are literate, numerate, who can analyze information and ideas; who can generate new ideas and implement them; and who can communicate clearly and work with other people. Unfortunately, they have worked to impose a culture of standardization and testing that stifles the creativity of students and teachers alike. This may be no surprise as corporate history is littered with the wreckage of companies and industries that were resistant to change. Meanwhile, parents and kids want education to help them find work and become economically independent; and to identify their unique talents that will help them lead a life that has meaning and purpose. Real life is not linear or standardized; it is organic, creative, and diverse.
2. Facing the Revolution
- Ken starts with reviewing the histories of transformative inventions, communications technology, and computers. This gives you a clear notion that the rate of change and innovation is speeding up. It also shows that what was impossible yesterday is routine today. He then takes a look at some possible futures involving things like nanotechnology. In order to deal with the increasing pace of change, Ken feels that our best resource is to cultivate our ability to imagine, create, and innovate. Doing this has to be one of the principal priorities of education and training everywhere. In short, education is the key to our future.
3. The Trouble with Education
- Employers say they want people who can think creatively, who can innovate, who can communicate well, work in teams and are adaptable and self-confident. They also complain that many graduates have few of these qualities. This is not surprising as conventional academic programs are not designed to develop them. We are creating more college graduates than we need and many end up taking jobs for which they are overqualified. The system has intensified programs of standardized testing in language and math with many harmful side effects. Achievement in literacy and math has scarcely budged and subjects viewed as nonessential have suffered. Students who fail to graduate or who graduate but aren’t ready for college suffer even more. It is clearly time to rethink some of our basic ideas about education. Reform is not enough. Education needs to be transformed.
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Thursday, November 22nd, 2018
Outliers: The Story of Success (©2008, Little Brown: New York, NY) is Malcolm Gladwell’s third mega best seller after The Tipping Point and Blink, both of which are summarized here. Gladwell looks at many notable situations where people or populations stand out from the crowd. He finds that circumstances and effort are more important than talent. There are many lessons here for educators and parents.
The Secret of Roseto
- Roseto is a town in Pennsylvania populated by immigrants from a village in Italy. Although the residents do not have a healthy diet or lifestyle, they do have a very low incidence of heart disease. The entire town is an outlier in this respect. After a great deal of study, it was determined that it was the supportive town culture that helps keep the residents so healthy.
The Importance of Birthdays
- A study of birthdays for stars in hockey, baseball, and soccer shows that players born earlier in the year are more likely to stand out and qualify for better coaching and more playing time. At a young age there is a significant advantage to being born earlier in the year of eligibility. In preadolescence, a twelve-month gap in age represents an enormous difference in physical and mental maturity.
- The birth order effect also operates in schools where the older students in a grade level tend to do better and get placed in higher ability groups. Older children scored up to 12 percentile points higher on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Teachers seem to sometimes confuse maturity with ability. Schools could put all the students born in the first quarter of the year in the same class and do the same with children born in other parts of the year of eligibility. As it is, many educated parents hold their kids back to insure that they will be older than their classmates which gives them a better chance in education and school sports that are based on grade level rather than age.
Time Trumps Talent-What Really Made the Beatles Great
- Psychological studies have demonstrated that all great artists and people with great expertise got there only after putting in at least 10,000 hours of effort or practice. Even Mozart didn’t make great music until he hit this number at the age of 21. It takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.
- A club owner from Hamburg went to London looking for bands to play in this club. By pure chance he met an agent from Liverpool who booked the Beatles in his club. Unlike English gigs which seldom lasted more than an hour, the club had the Beatles play for five hours or more a night. All told they performed 270 nights in just over a year and a half. By 1964 they had performed about 1200 times. They were no good on stage when they went to Hamburg and they were very good when they came back.
Tags: Bill Gates, Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, The Beatles
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Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
Paying Attention: Thoughts on Communication in Schools by Troy Roddy, PhD (©2011, Troy P. Roddy) focuses on what might be the most important leadership topic, and the one most in need of improvement in schools and other institutions. If you ask people what needs to improve, communication will probably be at or near the top of the list. Troy packs excellent advice into 33 quick and easy pages to help anyone improve this important skill. It’s only $2.99 at Amazon. You can follow him on Twitter as @DrTroyRoddy or at his blog.
Tags: Communication, Paying Attention, Troy P. Roddy
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Friday, November 10th, 2017
Peer Feedback in the Classroom: Empowering Students to be the Experts by Starr Sackstein tells the story of how she introduced peer feedback and all of its benefits into her classroom and how it can be applied in other subjects. If you try this, not only will your students develop knowledge and skills better, they will also learn vital collaboration and social skills. Buy one for your school now.
Part 1: The Power of Feedback – 1. The Rational for Teaching Students to Provide Peer Feedback
- Every student has the potential to be an expert in something. Step one is to get to know the students so you can identify and expand their strengths. This can allow the students to share their strengths, perspective, ideas, and preferences. This shows students that there is no one right way to learn or teach. Today it is common for students to know more about some topics than teachers do. This should be exciting as students can share expertise. Technology is an area where this often happens.
- The big idea here is to build trust and enthusiasm, which may not be easy and will take time. A key is to teach students self-advocacy. This will make it easier to address specific needs as students will bring them to you. This should start in kindergarten. This will also serve students throughout their lives. In short, students need to know when they need help and how to get it. Asking peers to help can be a great way to grow. Like all chapters, this one ends with reflection questions for teachers.
2. Developing a Supportive Classroom Culture
- Your initial focus is to develop a welcoming respectful learning environment that supports risk-taking and honest sharing. Students need to be comfortable sharing their work and gain confidence in providing feedback. You have to know your students if you are going to develop rapport so start by finding out what you can about their lives and outside interests as you share some of yourself. Respect can’t be assumed; it must be taught explicitly and modeled continuously. Starr suggests you use surveys to learn about students and provides some samples.
- Rituals and routines are essential to developing rapport. You don’t want to be too flexible and you must establish clear expectations. It might help to have students produce things that are intentionally inferior. They should feel safe correcting these items and see that it’s ok to be wrong. The teacher needs to model feedback intentionally so students can see what is expected. This will include praise and questions that should prompt students to think about how to improve their work. Be sure to share errors you have made. Once your rituals are in place you can give students more control as you facilitate from the side. Starr gives examples from her student newspaper class and another teacher’s fifth-grade class.
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3. What Meaningful Feedback Looks Like
- Step one is to set clear goals and criteria for success. For each assignment, you need to ask is this worthy of feedback? Use questioning activities and discussions and connect work to prior and future learning. Align learning objectives with standards and the big picture of the lesson. Make sure students see exemplars so they know what mastery looks like, but not ones that are identical to the current assignment.
- Feedback needs to be specific, timely, and delivered in a way that works for the receiver. Focus on one or two points at a time. Rather than saying good job, let them know how they have improved their ability to do something specific. When you are critical, provide suggestions for how to improve something. Limit your feedback to the material covered. Avoid giving feedback too soon as you will end up owning the work yourself. Feedback from teachers should be private. Look for nonverbal cues as you give feedback and adjust your tone accordingly. If a student is shutting down say something encouraging and revisit the issue later.
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Saturday, December 4th, 2010
Personality Poker: The Playing Card Tool for Driving High-Performane Teamwork and Innovation by Stephen M Shapiro builds on decades of research to offer a simple game that provides deep insights regarding yourself, your coworkers, and your organization. The four personality types are represented by 13 traits on the cards of each suit. You can play a solitaire version or an assortment of versions with others.
Click here for my summary of Personality Poker.
A free online version is available at the Personality Poker site.
Tags: Personality Poker, Personality Testing, Stephen Shapiro
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Thursday, April 19th, 2012
Power Listening: Mastering the Most Critical Business Skill of All by Bernard T. Ferrari (©2012, Portfolio/Penguin: New York, NY) provides specific lessons in how to improve what may be the single most undervalued and underdeveloped skill for leaders, educators, parents, and students. Bernie makes a compelling case that anyone can improve from a mediocre listener to a power listener. It just takes commitment and practice. This is the rare resource that goes beyond just telling you that listening is important to telling you how to do it well. Every organization should click the icon below to buy more copies of this vital book for everyone in a position of leadership.
Tags: Bernard T. Ferrari, Listening, Power Listening
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Monday, October 3rd, 2016
Preparing Students for a Project-Based World by Bonnie Lathram, Bob Lenz, and Tom Vander Ark spells out the rationale for introducing project-based learning as an excellent way to prepare students for college and careers. It is the first of three reports about the new economy and inequities in student preparation. The next two parts will deal with preparing teachers and students for a project-based classroom.
Introduction
- The new economy requires a lot from young people. The bar is higher and the rules have changed in five ways. 1. Anyone who can access the Internet can learn to code, build and app, and start a business. This makes competition much greater. 2. The pace of technological change requires continuous learning. 3. As robots take over routine tasks, non-routine work is organized into projects. 4. Soon 40% of workers will be freelance and people employed by companies will move frequently. 5. Value is produced by initiating and sustaining complex work applying design and problem-solving skills.
- As a result, we need to reimagine how we teach students and how we organize schools. Students need to use their own interests and passions to grow their skills, master core academic content, and learn how to collaborate with others. One way to do this is to give all students access to high-quality project-based learning.
The New Economy
- For most workers, a series of projects will mark their career. There is also an increase in gigs, which are short-term routine tasks requiring low-skills. The classic example here is Uber where anyone with a car and a drivers license can earn a modest income. Better paying jobs are just the opposite since they usually involve long-term projects, require much more skill, and pay much more. Today’s youth also has to beware of jobs subject to automation. The classic example here is tax preparation.
Inequity: Old and New
- Policy changes associated with No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have not reduced gaps between black and white performance. Nine out of ten children from the bottom of the income ladder who graduate from college move to a higher economic bracket. Being poor, however, is an impediment to getting the education that can lift you out of poverty. Most of the jobs created since the last recession have gone to people with at least some college education. Higher college costs and stagnant wages have lowered the return on college investments so don’t go until you are ready and don’t leave without a degree.
A Project-Based World
- Technological and economic change results in a very different job market for students to face. There are six ways to prepare for a project-based world and it is vital that teachers facilitate all of them. 1. Look for real-world internships. 2. Get real-time feedback, not just grades. In your career you will get feedback so get ready for it. 3. Learn how to collaborate. 4. Project results need to be communicated so work on communication skills including public speaking. 5. Personalize your learning. This will involve applying the skills learned elsewhere. 6. Learn about project management and team leadership.
Deeper and Project-Based Learning
- Project-based learning is one way to support deeper learning outcomes. They should be demanding and require a public audience. Essential project design elements include: a focus on student learning goals and standards, meaningful problems and appropriate levels of challenge, an extended process, a real-world context, student voice and choice, time for reflection, opportunities to critique and revise, and a public presentation. This report includes exemplars using several project results.
- This chapter ends with several fallacies associated with traditional non-project-based education. These include: memorizing content is all that’s necessary, more homework increases rigor but PBL is not rigorous, and PBL only works for white middle class students. The authors claim that PBL allows students to learn and master content knowledge, demonstrate and apply knowledge and skills, and learn how to learn as they transfer knowledge to new and different contexts.
A Call For Action
- It’s clear that we need advocates in the education and business community to move forward on this vital issue. Do what you can to get this information into the hand of policy makers and engage them in conversations. Parents can also play a key role as advocates. The authors list ten elements necessary to make high-quality possible. They are: 1. Pedagogy – Combine PBL with personalized learning. 2. Accountability – Assign individual as well as team projects an make all students in a group accountable. 3. Integration – Projects should span disciplines. This may require some team teaching. 4. Badging – Students should receive badges to certify things like project management skills. 5. Voice – Students should be responsible for defining the scope and deliverables of their projects. 6. Assessment – Teachers should check in periodically to provide formative feedback and use a rubric to assess completed projects. 7. Exhibitions – Students should be able to present their work to a public audience. 8. Portfolios – Students should collect and manage artifacts in a portfolio as evidence of their learning. 9. Training – Teachers need significant training prior to implementing PBL. 10. Tech – Powerful tech tools should be available to students and teachers
The Authors
- The authors bios are included at the end of this document. Bonnie Lathram is a Director at Getting Smart where she leads large-scale education initiatives. Bob Lenz is the Executive Director of the Buck Institute for Education. Tom Vander Ark is CEO of Getting Smart and a partner at Learn Capital, an education venture fund. You can follow them on Twitter at @belathram (Bonnie) @pblbob (Bob) and @tvanderark (Tom).
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Monday, April 10th, 2023
Preventing Polarization: 50 Strategies for Teaching Kids About Empathy, Politics, and Civic Responsibilty by Michelle Blanchet & Brian Deters is aimed at social studies (civics) teachers but is also a fine resource for teachers and parents of students in upper elementary school on up. We need to encourage students to take on controversial topics by gaining knowledge of all sides of each argument. They should also be allowed to engage in open-ended problem-solving, creative hands-on activities, collaboration, and community service.
Introduction: Why we need to stop avoiding civics and politics
- Not being able to talk about politics is a communications failure. We all need the same things and we all most likely want what’s best for everyone. The authors hope to help teachers and parents open communication on political problems so that they can be better solved, which won’t happen if they are ignored. Learn how to teach the 4 Cs: critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication.
1. Practice Sense-Making
- Try to let students experience the world as much as possible, and let them try to make sense of what they experience. People learn best when they are actively involved, and what may seem like play can often be active learning. Ask more how and why questions and fewer what questions. Ask how something works using the examples the authors give.
- As for politics, beware of supporting a candidate based on their identity rather than their policies. Make sure they understand how the actions of the government impact their lives and encourage them to get involved. Polarization happens in times of rapid change.
2. Keep Asking Questions
- Children are very curious as they try to figure out how the world works. As we age, however, we become less curious as we no longer think we need to understand more. The trick, therefore to becoming a lifelong learner is to stay curious. You do this by questioning everything. It’s the teacher’s job to ask a lot of questions to encourage critical thinking and to encourage students to ask questions themselves. Teachers can use question quotas and other techniques included here.
3. Cultivate Humility
- A wise teacher once told me “Dr. Green, you have to keep your ego out of it.” The other thing you need to do is to help students do the same. For this you need an open mind, be ok with being wrong, and learn from mistakes. Learning how to manage your own emotions is vital if you want to model this behavior. A respectful disagreement involves being hard on the problem and easy on the other person.
- You want kids to be confident, but not overconfident. Be certain not to embarrass anyone for being wrong. Finally, the authors suggest conducting structured debates where students make statements, present data, explain how the data supports their statement, prepare for rebuttal, and present a conclusion.
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Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
Techniques of Propaganda and Persuasion by Magedah E. Shabo provides an historical look at how propaganda has been used to manipulate the masses. The book is packed with interesting examples and illustrations. There is a companion CD with an extensive PowerPoint that offers a detailed explanation of the 11 techniques. The book will allow students and adults avoid being manipulated by advertisers, politicians, and anyone using the techniques. Every social studies teacher should have one in their classroom and no library is complete without it.
Click here for my summary of Propaganda and Persuasion.
Tags: Megedah Shabo, Persuasion, Propaganda
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