The Teacherly Me

I like reading. I like literature. However, I wouldn’t say that literary knowledge is a strength. I know I’m well-read, and I know how to analyze literature. But, what I’m really good at is composition and rhetoric. I know about voice in writing. I’m an extremely logical person, constantly thinking through connections and making new connections. I love linguistics and focusing on how language works to help us all communicate. This is what helps me the most in analyzing literature. I parse sentences and dive into the diction. To me, language is music, an art itself.

I’m also effective at visual communication. My experience in graphic design and visual rhetoric is enhanced by an understanding that language is just as visual as it can be aural or oral. It is meant to be seen and heard.

Ultimately, what I have is passion. I care about communicating and connecting with other human beings because, in the end, that is what matters. Life is made up of these connections. This passion is what keeps me loving what I do. It allows me to have a new experience each day in my classroom. I don’t collect things; I collect experiences.

The nicest gift I’ve gotten to date has to be the Chemex coffeemaker my (then) intern gave me last year on her last day. It was a gift to thank me for inviting her into my classroom and for helping her become a better teacher. It is the neatest coffeemaker, and in her own words, it works and the coffee tastes amazing “because science!"

What makes this gift so special is that I have a constant reminder of the best internship I’ve had to date. Stephanie was a fantastic intern, and I am so proud of her. Also, I’m so happy that she was hired at our school and that she is having such a great first year! She is a true professional who loves her career and always pushes herself to be better. She has helped me just as much as she claims that I helped her. She is proof that this profession is not doomed, that it is going to be okay. No, not just okay. Better than ever.

I am not in the habit of listing my qualifications, accomplishments, or accolades, so this prompt is actually a welcome challenge. What I am most proud of to date is having received validation on a national level for my efforts and pedagogical beliefs. A few weeks ago, I found out my proposal for a 3-hour workshop at FETC—one of the largest education technology conferences in the nation—had been accepted. I have done trainings at my school and all over my district, and I have presented a poster at FETC and have co-presented with other peers, but this is the first time I’ll be doing a full workshop in front of, hopefully, a sizable national audience.

Being accepted for this showed me that I’m growing and expanding my expertise in a way that can help even more teachers be better in their own classrooms. The next challenge is pulling off a successful workshop!

If you are attending FETC in January 2015, look for this workshop:

Every day, I look forward to working with my students, especially my yearbook staff. I love having a creative outlet, where I can talk about “non-English" things, like graphic design, typography, and pop culture. I love talking about developing a style in journalism and the ethics and duties of a journalist. I love playing with a computer. I love teaching the staff how to make the idea in their heads match what is ultimately printed.

See, yearbook—journalism, in general—is the most collaborative, real-world experience most of my students have access to. Here, they have complete control over a gargantuan undertaking. They are afraid to mess up because they want it to be right. It is their yearbook. Here, they talk to each other about life matters, but also about the proper place for a comma in that list about Zac’s favorite bands. Here, they realize that language isn’t about national standards or state exams; here, it is about communication and effect. Here, they tie the verbal to the visual in a way few English classes can effectively do.

I fell into this position of yearbook advisor by chance, and I was nervous when I took over. But, I couldn’t imagine my chaotic day without this hilarious bunch of professionals who contradict the pervading stigma that teenagers are immature, irresponsible, ignorant twits that need to be controlled.

Being a teacher is a tough, thankless job. Still, I love it, not because I’m a glutton for punishment but because I am helping others find their passion. I help my students discover the importance of having goals, and they work hard to meet those goals. One of the most fulfilling things about my work is when I see a student understand what he/she wants from life. When he/she starts to take control of his/her own experience. I love and appreciate my students. They are funny. They keep me honest. They prove to me daily that there is hope. We can have a world that is better.

Another inspiring aspect of my career is working with other teachers who have the same goals, who understand that being an effective teacher means pushing and growing beyond our limits. As a technology trainer and professional development facilitator, I am so lucky to work with teachers who feel the same as I do: that “I don’t know" isn’t some sort of death knell signaling ineffective teaching; that “I don’t know" is what drives us to learn more and do better.

That’s what makes my profession so wonderful—Growth. Evolution. Improvement. I got into this career to help others be better. In turn, their problems, questions, and challenges make me better. As it should be.

So, it finally happened. I had a lesson that completely failed. I have been trying my hand at flipped and blended instruction with relative success in my first 2 lessons. My intern has jumped on the bandwagon as well, and she has created videos for her unit on Julius Caesar. Good videos, too. Like this one. So, when we decided to create an Edublogs walkthrough for our sophomores, who were creating their 20% Project blogs, we were feeling pretty optimistic.

My first flipped video was created using Keynote with narration, which was then exported as a movie file and uploaded to my teacher YouTube channel. It worked great! The students were able to access it from anywhere, especially because they were at home and did not have to worry about our district’s YouTube filter. For this blog lesson, however, I asked my intern to try the same practice, creating a presentation that can be exported as a movie. Feeling a little more brave, I had the idea of uploading the video to Edmodo directly.

Here’s where the fun begins. My intern doesn’t have Keynote, so she created the presentation on PowerPoint and added her narration. That’s ok, I thought, because PowerPoint now has a movie export option as well. Fast forward to the export: It sucks. The sound wouldn’t export at all. Oh, and we tried importing into Keynote, but the movie export failed there as well. Did I mention that all this happened in the 50-minute planning period before our first sophomore class?

So, on to Plan B, we have the functioning PowerPoint. Student laptops have PowerPoint. Simple enough. We post the original .pptx file to Edmodo, and our lesson is ready to roll. Think again! Even the self-packaged PowerPoint Show file (.ppsx) didn’t post with the sound. At this point, the only possible major factor was that the PowerPoint was created on a Mac, and the students were using PCs. Come on!

But, here’s what happened that was awesome. First, the students said, “That’s ok! It happens. Just tell us what was on it, and we’ll follow along.” Rather than taking advantage or laughing or even being frustrated, they accepted our failure and helped us push through it. They were motivated enough to still want to learn the material and sign up for their blogs. Actually, they were pretty excited to sign up for their blogs.

I have been telling my students all year that failure is how we learn, and they finally got to see this happen to a teacher in real time. I am usually so focused on ensuring that I’m on top of things, and I leave my “fail time” for moments when students aren’t around. I believe watching both my intern and me recover from failure right before their eyes helped make concrete what we were telling them about the power found in making mistakes.

What did I learn from this experience? Well, I learned that presentation software is not the most effective or dynamic way to create a flipped/blended instruction video. Since this lesson, we have found and almost fallen in love with WeVideo, a full cloud-based video creator/editor that works on all platforms because it is web-based and not blocked by our district filters. I learned that everything---everything---needs to be tested, rehearsed, and debugged well in advance and (more importantly) on various platforms, both mobile and desktop. When creating a video lesson, allow enough time to watch the video everywhere. That way, not only can you tweak any timing or information issues, but you can also make sure that your one student still using a Commodore 64 can still watch the video.

Seeing as how I have just started on this road to flipped/blended instruction, I am anticipating many more bumps and glitches, but I have to meet them with excitement instead of anxiety. I’m certainly not perfect, and the best way to learn is through failure. So here’s my reminder to myself: Failure is always an option.

The plan was simple: Students worked with their tablemates to create as many possibilities for 20% Projects. Good ideas, bad ideas, ugly ideas. Write them down. I gave them 20 minutes to get all this out, and as an added incentive, I offered the group with the most ideas a little prize. That’s it.

They immediately got to work and raced to get ideas down. Sure they came up with some ridiculous ideas, such as build a time travel machine, but they also had some great ideas, like start a girls’ lacrosse team. When their time was up, I told them that in order to get the full effect of the Idea Factory, they had to mimc what the big companies do. In these situations, people get together in a room to brainstorm and put their ideas up for everyone to see. That is how they can start narrowing down and selecting which ideas work, which don’t, and which need some tweaking. And often, it’s the ideas that need tweaking that end up being the most rewarding.

That’s where the Idea Wall came in. The students had 10 minutes to fill up the whiteboard with ideas. No white space allowed.

After the board was filled, I gave them some time to take it all in. Some students took pictures of the board; some pondered ideas. All in all, lots of laughs and lots of learning.

This is a lesson I definitely plan on replicating. Because of time and curriculum constraints, I didn’t have the luxury of working this into the AP classes, which I really regret. Next year, when I take this on for the entire school year, I’ll be sure to do it with all of my classes (maybe even yearbook!).

Yesterday, I introduced the 20% Project to both my English 2 Honors and AP Lang classes. I was so nervous despite having the Keynote made, marked up with notes, and looking good. Part of the nervousness came from tech worries-nobody had a mini-DVI-to-VGA adapter and AirServer tends to lag with videos on our WiFi-but I was particularly nervous about the unknown human element: What if they weren’t receptive?

My students are from a generation and a part of town that is notorious for its sense of entitlement. I have wonderful and caring students (I really love them. They are the dream classes), but they still have a huge aversion to individual thought. If I don’t provide step-by-step instructions for completion (without any room for deviation), they freak. How would they react to an experience that is entirely up to them? I was dreading heads exploding and a mutiny stirring.

I have never been so happy to be wrong! Every single class got to work looking up more information and sample projects or brainstorming their own project ideas after the 10-minute presentation (which I managed to get down to 7-minutes after I actually wrote a script (a key lesson I learned for creating flipped class videos). Every. Single. Student. They were sharing. They were encouraging. They were asking questions. The vagueness I thought was going to be a stumbling block was actually liberating for them.

Taking Kevin Brookhouser’s advice, I started class with 60 seconds of silence to give the students a chance to clear their mind and prepare for the new information that was about to assault their current notion of education. I also followed Chris Kesler’s suggestion and played the “Pep Talk” video from Kid President. I’ve included it in the video of my Keynote below:

After this whole spiel, I let them loose and gave them the rest of the period to brainstorm project ideas. Those neurons were sparking like crazy! I’m not kidding, the ambient temperature of the classroom actually rose by a couple of degrees!

Next Friday, they’ll be turning in proposals and giving an Elevator Pitch either to my intern or to me. This will start preparing them to eventually create and deliver an engaging presentation (à la TED Talk). After all their wonderful ideas (ranging from building an amphibious car to helping a parent’s struggling business), I can’t wait for these proposals!

After months of reading with secret excitement and speculation, I’ve realized that the only way I’m going to pull this off is by actually throwing myself into this experience entirely. Otherwise, I would be planning and nitpicking and strategizing for many more months. That’s not what this project is about. There is only so much structure I can provide, but this is about their motivations, their passions, and their structures.

Friday, we’ll start by following Chris Kesler’s lead and playing the viral Kid President Pep Talk video. Although I’m sure several students will have seen it, I feel it’ll be a good taste of what I want from them. The expectation that they throw themselves into these projects because they care about them. In case you haven’t seen it, here it is:

This is my passion project. When I first started reading about it. I learned about Genius Hour from Chris Kesler. As I kept reading, I kept wondering how I can bring this into an English classroom, especially in a state and county that focuses on the teacher’s responsibility for keeping students occupied for the entire class period each day. Then, I found Kevin Brookhouser. After reading practically his entire blog, I still didn’t feel ready.

My hesitation makes sense. How can I possibly do this when all my students are focused on doing exactly what the teacher tells them to do? How can I justify this in a county where Marzano rules, and I need data to back everything up? How can I accomplish this when there are state and national assessments coming up and I still have to cover two novels with my AP students and a Shakespeare play with my sophomores?

Thankfully, I was paired up with an intern this semester who was not only willing to tackle the challenge with me, but who also was as excited about it as I was! Moreover, she had some experience in her coursework in developing flipped lessons, so she’ll definitely help me make time for it. She’s done her fair amount of research as well, so we’re as prepared as we’re going to be.

Excuses are gone. The only way I’ll do this is by doing it. Besides, if I don’t, what kind of example will I be setting for my students?

Take, for example, the dreaded “bellringer” (or daily warm-up, or whatever you call it). I take this opportunity every day to teach and reinforce grammar concepts in context. Even with an entertaining story and digestible chunks (thanks to Jane Bell Kiester for her Caught Ya! series), grammar is still synonymous with “death” in the minds of most, if not all, high schoolers. No one likes grammar, and I’ve almost come to terms with it. Almost. However, this year, I picked up on some interesting murmur going on while the students were working…They were actually talking to each other about grammar! They checked with each other, offered explanations, and gave more examples. Now, it doesn’t matter who is picked to provide corrections because they all have learned.

This isn’t the only social learning happening. They have accomplished numerous projects both in their home groups and in mixed groups. They like the tables. It breaks them out of the mindset that education is every (wo)man for him/herself. Learning is something we do together. Also, they have more workspace. They can have a book and a notebook open comfortably. They can move to a table to work by themselves or join others if need be.

It took a bit to get used to the additional noise, I must admit. But, it’s good noise. It certainly hasn’t solved every classroom management problem. Those will exist in any classroom environment. What it has done, though, is retrain the students and accustom them to the type of learning I expect from them.