Monday Motivator #11 2017-18

One caring adult can make all the difference.
Thank you for all you do for our students!

https://www.facebook.com/goalcast/videos/1608313555912495/

Monday Motivator #10 2017-18

Helping Students Deal with Distractions

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view-print.php?id=549

Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan

We have had the privilege of spending the last few weeks in many teachers' classrooms supporting them as they launch their literacy workshops. The first few weeks of school are so important for making the structures and routines you want to use all year long consistent and predictable. It is amazing how exhausting it is to teach 26 youngsters to follow directions, sit in the correct spot, find their materials, not talk to the person next to them, and read! One topic that comes up again and again with the teachers we mentor is student distractibility. Distraction can play out in many forms depending on the grade level and chemistry of the class, but the concern is common across many classrooms, schools, and districts.  Distraction is a reality of life -- we get distracted by many things that tug our attention and time away from the things in which we want or need to engage.The average person gets distracted six to ten times every minute, and research is also being conducted to study what is happening to the human mind in our current culture of multi-tasking. Over a century ago, psychologist William James asserted, "The human mind can't actually focus on any unchanging object for more than a few seconds at a time. Focus is a paradox -- it has distraction built into it. The two are symbiotic; we need both." When we think about students in classrooms, it is no wonder they are distracted. It's time to talk about focus with our students, embrace distraction, and discuss strategies we can use to concentrate onliteracy tasks despite distractions. Here are some lessons we have been using to help kids focus: It Happens to Everyone As I sit in front of 26 sets of young eyes, I begin to talk about distraction:"Sometimes when I am reading, I get distracted. I hear something and look up; or I remember something I was supposed to do and I think about going to do it; or my stomach rumbles and I think about what I want to eat for lunch. Does this ever happen to you?" Twenty-five sets of eyes look around unsure, but one set takes a risk and slowly raises his hand. "Yes," I continue, "it happens to everyone." The risk-taker sits up a little straighter and asks,"Even teenagers?" Trying to hold back the laughter, I look him straight in the eye and in the most serious voice I can conjure up reply, "Yes, even to teenagers." By beginning this conversation we make it safe to discuss it in the classroom. Rather than being frustrated by it as the teacher or embarrassed of it as the student, let's just get the issue out there. Distraction will happen, it should happen, and it is happening. The most important question is: What are we going to do about it? Share the Research "Did you know that scientists can now place probes on people's brains to learn how we think and learn? One of the things scientists have learned is that the human mind is constantly being distracted from what a person is trying to attend to. This means that even if you are trying to pay attention to something, your brain becomes interested in paying attention to something else. One scientist explained, "We need to decide what we want to pay attention to, it just doesn't happen. We have the ability to shift our attention and focus on what we decide is important. People who achieve great things choose to focus their attention on what they think is important." Even Sir Isaac Newton, the famous scientist who discovered concepts like gravity (why things fall down) and the laws of motion (why things move), credits his discoveries to "having patient attention more than any other talent." This means that he thinks he made these discoveries because he chose to pay attention to these ideas for a long time. In readers' workshop, it is easy to become distracted. You may see someone moving around, you may hear teachers meeting with other students, and you might begin to think about recess or lunch. Thumbs up if any of these things happen to you? (Today I see lots of thumbs. I know I am making this a safe topic to talk about.) Well, if it hasn't happened to you yet, I promise it will. It happens to everyone, it is just how our brains work. We need to notice when it happens because if we do not notice it, then we cannot choose to refocus our attention on reading. If we want to be the best readers we can be and love reading, we need to teach ourselves how to focus our attention -- just like Sir Isaac Newton. Everyone turn and talk to your partner about what tends to distract your attention from reading during readers' workshop. There is an explosion of conversation. We share ideas and build and add the chart titled Things That Distract Us.  Today as you are reading, notice if you are distracted at any time. Noticing is the first step in understanding how attention works and learning how to choose to refocus our attention. We have found that it is powerful to share specific research findings with our students and explain why they are getting distracted. If they do not notice it is happening or understand why it is happening, than they cannot begin to use strategies to change it. What Can We Do About It "We have been discussing how our brains work over the last week and noticing what distracts us as we read. Yesterday, Adam shared that he was distracted during reader's workshop because he saw the rain out the window and then began thinking about recess. He was wondering if it was going to be canceled. Many of you shared things that you found distracting. It is great that we are now noticing how our brains are working so that we can learn how to refocus our attention. A scientist named Dr. Desimone from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has done research that shows we can train our brain to focus on what we want to focus on. It has been shown that we need to figure out what is distracting us and try to limit that distraction. If we become distracted then we need to notice it and then refocus. Remember the chart we compiled of the things that distract us during readers' workshop: Things That Distract Us During Readers' Workshop People talking Teachers conferring Announcements People walking around People moving Things I am thinking about What I can see out the window My mind Other books I want to read Someone getting a tissue Someone coming in the classroom Talking to my friend Some of the things listed are things we can hear, some are things we can see, and some are thoughts in our mind. Turn and talk to your partner about one of these distractions and how you could help yourself not to get distracted. Let's chart your ideas. Strategies to Focus Our Attention Find a quiet spot to read Try to not sit close to anyone Plug my ears Notice if I am distracted and refocus Reread the section we missed in our book Find books that we can really get into Don't sit near my friends Try to block everything out Make rules that we cannot walk around These are some great ideas. Today, during readers' workshop, let's try some of these strategies to focus our attention. Remember the most important thing is to notice when you are distracted, and then refocus and reread. We can train our brains to focus on what is important to us -- our reading! Let's see how it goes today. Our classrooms are always bustling with energy and activity. It is not realistic to expect our students to work without distraction. They need to move, chat, wonder, think, and eavesdrop from time to time. Is this behavior much different from what we do during a faculty meeting or staff development session? If we accept that distraction will happen then we need to teach our students that "Attention is a finite resource. We are constantly making choices and we need to choose what we want to focus on." (Winifred Gallagher in Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life) If we instill the love of reading in our students and find books our students love, we will have taken the first step. The next step is helping them each find strategies that help them to focus their attention so they can become lost in a wonderful text. [To explore more of the attention and distraction research base, read Christine Rosen's essays The People of the Screen and The Myth of Multitasking.]

Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan

Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan have been working in the field of professional development for the past 16 years. They now run a private staff development business, Teachers for Teachers, working with varied school systems to implement best practices in the field of literacy and to engage in institutional change.  They are the authors of Assessment in Perspective.

© Choice Literacy. All rights reserved.

Monday Motivator #9 2017-18

This year Oak Park is implementing the RCD (Responsibility-Centered Discipline) model into school discipline as part of their Positive Behavior Support Framework and Universal Behavior Plan. I asked Chad Valadez to share an update on their work.  See below for more information:

Larry Thompson is partnering with Oak Park as a liaison, and presenter of the Give ‘em five technique.  The Oak Park staff has dove in, and is taking risks with this new way of thinking, and  positive results are surfacing.  Specifically, in the relationships between adults and students.  Listed below are some quotes from Larry on why RCD is needed, as well as a couple testimonials from OP staff. 

"If students are not held responsible to fix the problems they create, they will not see those problems as their own. A student who feels no weight of responsibility to change has no reason to come up with a solution" - Larry Thompson RCD presenter

Give ‘em five conversations:

These conversations are highly personalized, because educators decide what words they will use — and the themes do not need to be addressed in any particular order. The goal of “Give ‘em Five” is to help educators feel comfortable and natural while delivering a message of responsibility. The five themes are:

• Support

– Use supportive statements that connect to your relationship with the student or identify a strength that she possesses.

• Expectation

– Let the student know the expectation you have for him in the class.

• Breakdown

– Communicate where you see the expectation breaking down or failing to be met.

• Benefit

– Tell the student how meeting the expectation benefits her.

• Closure

– Determine whether the situation has been resolved or whether the conversation is at a place where you can feel comfortable moving on.

"The steps in this process can be taught to anyone with any skill level. It can be put into practice immediately, and we as teachers and staff began using it the very next day.  We even had teachers go home after the PD day with Larry and start to use the techniques with their own families.” - Oak Park Teacher

Tardy policy insights from Will Mayle:

We are beginning to see breakthroughs happening with many of our students. Just today alone, we called only 15 kids down to the office for tardiness. This is a low number to begin with. Most days are around 40 plus. In those 15 kids who had detentions scheduled due to being tardy to school or class, four had developed a plan and asked if they could reschedule and they gave reasons for needing the rescheduling. They even went a step further and had dates available that they could make up their detentions.

This is one of the ways that we have been coaching them. We ask them to open up mature dialogue with their teachers to find a solution and not throw up road blocks, such as “I can’t do that”. Own the problem and then develop a plan for changing the behavior. The process is showing gains with students of all ages. The students are beginning to see that adults are here as support, not always disciplinarians. 

By adults offering support and benefit for students during tough situations, and students owning their part of the conflict as well as developing a plan for change, we are starting to see less referrals.  More importantly we are not seeing the repeat offender for the same types of conflicts.

Chad Valadez and his team will be sharing more on this process at the Secondary Universal Behavior Training this week.  For more questions, please feel free to contact him or Dr. Christopher Sartain.

Thank you Oak Park for all your hard work in building this process with students and helping them make respectful and responsible choices!

Monday Motivator #8 2017-18

The Power of Why
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb8KpHqU5tg

Monday Motivator #7 2017-18

The Big Fresh September 30, 2017 This Class

Brenda Power

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view-print.php?id=2877 If you see something beautiful in someone, speak it.                                                           Ruthie Lindsey Before the students even walked through the door of my classroom, I had heard about this class. They were infamously disengaged and challenging learners. Teachers had been feeling it for years. Although I tried not to let what I had heard shade my perception, I have to admit I felt it too. That is why my jaw dropped when I was looking over the results of a statewide survey and noticed there was one area in which our school scored significantly lower than the state average—a difference of 20 points. Grit. The grit category asked students to use a Likert scale to convey how well they felt each statement described them. The statements included sentences such as I am a hard worker and I don’t give up easily. There it was in black and white. The feeling teachers had communicated about this group of students was represented in tidy little bar graphs. The hard data was just the mirror I needed to reflect my own ugly assumptions about this class. I did not like what I was seeing. The reality of this truth walloped me, and I knew I had to face it. The next day I projected the survey results for my eighth graders and explained what they were looking at. Then I had to ask, “So, what do you think? Does this really capture who you are?” “Yeah, that’s pretty much me. I am not really a hard worker.” The quiet voice came from the back of the room. A student who rarely spoke up and had perfected the art of work avoidance mumbled his agreement with the survey results. And all of a sudden, an image came to mind. The same student slumped down in his seat at the back of the room had participated in an open gym the previous week. For over an hour, I had watched this kid take challenging shots at the basketball hoop—shots I was sure he knew he was unlikely to make. Not once did he miss a shot and move into an easier position. He continued to push himself from long distances and tricky angles no matter the result. Giving up did not seem to even cross his mind. That took hard work, determination, and commitment. In other words, it took grit. “That’s not true,” I blurted out. I shared my open gym memory with the student. I explained how I disagreed that he was “not really a hard worker” because I had seen him work hard on the basketball court. A wide grin began to spread across his face. His shoulders straightened up a bit, and he was no longer looking at the floor. I was struck by the power my words had. It was like I was holding up a mirror and for the first time, this student liked what he saw. So did I. I stepped back and looked out at the classroom filled with students who deserved for me to project a more flattering reflection of them than the one I had been carrying. I made a silent pledge to be more careful about the messages I send to students about who they are. The stories we tell ourselves about students become the stories they tell themselves. Join me in honoring students by reflecting back to them all the good we see. This week we tackle a tough subject -- learning from failure. Plus more as always -- enjoy! Christy Rush-Levine Contributor, Choice Literacy Christy Rush-Levine has taught middle school language arts in a Chicago suburb for 14 years.  She blogs about her teaching life at Read Write Inspire and reviews books at Reading Beyond the Middle, a blog for her former students.