Pivotal Podcast Popcorn

In our second kernel of wisdom from Kirsten Franklin, she manages to cover a wide range of issues in a short time! First of all, Brandon asks her about the role of the teacher. How would you say the role of teachers is changing as you support them with the NGSS guidelines? Kirsten thinks that, in common with the Common Core approaches, teachers are moving more towards becoming facilitators rather than deliverers of information and facts. For example in science, teachers can start off a lesson with some kind of phenomena. This can be an object, a provocative question or a video - something which the children have to talk about, wrestle with and come up with an explanation of what it is or how it works. Inquiry is a large part of the process. Kirsten has experience of this when she brought Ghost Shrimp into First Grade. What does Kirsten recommend to teachers with regard to student learning behaviours? How do you create a safe and positive classroom culture? Academic Discourse is one area Kirsten has really focused on. This can be a foundation for a lot of other things which happen in science - and across the curriculum. We want children to be talking and behaving like scientists do and academic discourse is what scientists use. However, meaningful and deep discourse is easier said than done - it takes some explicit instruction. The teacher needs to create a classroom climate which supports the exchange of ideas in a safe and positive environment. Kids need to be respectful, attentive and reflective. Kirsten recommends taking the first few weeks with a class to establish the culture. This can be done via class meetings - prompts, sentence starters etc. Academic Discourse resources: The Talk Science Primer The Argument Toolkit ALDnetwork

In education for 28 years, Kirsten is an elementary grade teacher and teacher on special assignment coordinating Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards implementation for the Petaluma State Schools in Petaluma State, California. Kirsten did not come into teaching as a science specialist but took an opportunity to develop her skills in this area and she realised the importance of providing a high-quality science education to students, beginning at the earliest grades. I really got hooked on science as a vehicle to provide meaningful and engaging learning for students that can be emigrated across the curriculum. Eventually, Kirsten took up a role full-time, supporting teachers. She now loves working with adult learners and providing trainings for teachers. What are the main aims of the role? Kirsten does whatever she can to support teachers in providing quality science instruction to their students, based on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). She does a lot of networking and searching for resources which she shares with teachers. This is essential so they can make the shifts in their practice that the NGSS requires. Kirsten puts on workshops, writes a column in the district newsletter and works with individual teachers by request. She helps them to design lessons or even comes in and delivers model lessons. Professional Learning Networks This is a group of elementary teachers who are working on how to embed discourse in their science instruction. Kirsten has been developing this area as well. Stages of development Kirsten says that they spent the first 2 years in the Development Stage. This involved making teachers to understand the background and the rationale behind the NGSS as well as the architecture of the document. The colour coding and the columns can be really intimidating and overwhelming. Having worked with it, however, Kirsten sees it as a very useful blueprint for planning lessons and units. NGSS is not a curriculum, it simply contains guidelines for what students should be able to do after instruction and all the learning experiences teachers provide for them.  The district is now in a Transition Stage. They are now working mostly on the delivery of instruction and what the 'three dimensions' look like: Disciplinary core ideas - content Cross-cutting concepts - thematic concepts which help student think like scientists and to make sense of what they are learning Science and engineering practices - 8 different ways that students should be doing science So Kirsten is working on what these look like in a classroom and how to adapt existing lessons to embed these. The assessment which is coming will be focussing on assessing students on all the three dimensions which have to be happening at the same time. CSTA- Californian Science Teachers' Association NSTA - National Science Teachers' Association Kirsten on Twitter:  @kfranklina3

Dr. Diane Ketelle, Professor of Education at Mills College in Oakland, CA., returns this week with another kernel of wisdom. This time she concentrates on making connections and understanding the real needs of students. Diane starts by talking about authenticity. She says that the word is probably over-used but if we look carefully at it , we can see it incorporates a number of things. To be truly authentic we must start having hard conversations about: race class gender sexual orientation the gender binary We must think about: what a good school is what a good school is what it means to have a positive discipline program For Diane, authenticity underpins making positive change. It does take a lot of courage to make these genuine connections because you have to be willing not to avoid these harder conversations. Diane talks about 'nicety nice' schools who only concentrate on creating a polite working environment but not much learning is going on. To make deeper change and to help all learners make significant growth, you have to start with the adults having the tough conversations outlined above. Leadership Diane points out that leadership is work with people and if you don't enjoy working with people then educational leadership is probably not for you. Diane doesn't focus on 'solving problems with bullet points'. She wants to get to the deep, sustainable change which involves investment in teachers, investment in staff which means: investment in professional development looking at supervision sustaining ongoing conversations reflective practice Remember Diane's new book: Our first Pivotal Popcorn guest, Dr. Diane Ketelle has published a book – ‘Tread Lightly, Lead Boldly’.

We welcomed back Shawne Kearney this week to share some more kernels of wisdom. Shawne is a Master Teacher and New Teacher Support Provider and Mentor and is currently teaching 4th Grade in Sonoma State, California. A teacher for over 20 years, Shawne also now teaches adults at Sonoma State University where she specialises in project-based learning and classroom management. What is Project Based Learning (PBL)? This is a teaching method by which students gain specific knowledge and skills. They work for an extended period of time and investigate a complex question, problem or challenge. Launch with a bang - stimulate student interest Come up with a driving question - a challenging problem End with a culminating event - with public audience - so students can shine and reflect on their work What are the top strategies teachers should consider when contemplating PBL? 1. Know your standards. 2. Choose a problem or challenge which is highly relevant to your grade and students and which you are passionate about yourself. 3. Start small - it's a paradigm shift to start PBL in which you give students more control so start with a 2-week project 4. Teach the '4 Cs' explicitly before you ask students to solve a challenging problem - Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking and  Creativity. The Buck Institute for Education has a large amount of helpful resources for teaching the 4 Cs. The challenges of PBL Shawne says one of the biggest challenges is students collaborating and giving feedback to one another. She believes this is one of the reasons some teachers avoid PBL. It takes time to encourage students to overcome their 'learned helplessness'. They need to develop the stamina and endurance to cope with creating a project which may fail several times before finding success. Evaluation Shawne has rubrics which help students evaluate themselves and give kind and considerate feedback to their group members. The students can see themselves advancing on this but the real power is the feedback they receive from their peers which is far better than anything she can give them. She sees students' use of language in this feedback improving dramatically and they practice it so it doesn't seem so unnatural.

In his second Kernel of wisdom, Mark Cerutti gives us the benefit of his experience in effecting and managing change. Mark is Associate Superintendent of Education Services for the Elk Grove Unified Schools District, the 5th largest School District in the State of California. Top tips for creating effective, sustainable and data-driven change This is a big question but a critical one. 1. Mark sees the current situation as narrowing down assessments of schools to a single number or a single letter and if a school is seen to be successful then the only question which is asked is ‘what did they do to be successful?’ Mark believes this is the wrong question to ask. Of course we should know what we are doing to be successful but a much more important question is: ‘How did you decide to do that?’ Mark is more interested in what the thinking process was which guided schools to do what they have done to be successful. In public education there are many things you could be doing in many different ways so it’s great to be able to look in detail at what’s guiding leaders’ thinking. Mark mentions Dr. Alan Watkins’ work as useful in this area. His book, ‘The Secret Science of Great Leadership’ deals with physiology and then to emotions, feelings behaviour and then results. There are 6 different levels but in education we have been focussing just on ‘what are we doing?’ and ‘what results are we getting?’ In fact, in order to make significant change, we need to make sure people are able to think better and to feel better. There are several different elements which need to be understood to encourage and sustain effective change: Enlightened leadership which deals with professional learning Professional and adult development – the understanding of what influences adults in terms of physiology thinking 2. Human Performance Technology is a model which has been around for a long time. Mark likes it because it differentiates between input, output and outcome data in a systematic continuous improvement model. Sometimes when Mark hears people saying they do systematic, data-based decision making, he doubts it because they haven’t had the chance to use the techniques of HPT. 3. Make sure the changes you are making start with an understanding of ‘why’. This is what Mark covered in his first kernel. 4. Mark likes the work of Ron Richhart and his ‘Creative Cultures of Thinking’. The Common Core is trying to get kids to think at a deeper level and Rickert’s work is about getting everyone – teachers, students and parents – to become creative thinkers. Announcement Our first Pivotal Popcorn guest, Dr. Diane Ketelle has published a book - 'Tread Lightly, Lead Boldly'.

Kim Ray is Master Teacher and Department Chair at East Union High School in Manteca, California where she teaches ceramics. She has been teaching for over 20 years after trying to work as an independent artist. She still practices her art while being employed full-time. Kim believes teaching is the best job she has ever had and is still excited to go to work every day. Top tips on how to make your students feel safe and valued as well as engaged in their learning Kim likes to communicate a lot with her students. She touches base with each student every day by working with them individually which allows her to communicate her expectations repeatedly as well as getting to know them really well. She therefore knows about them, their families and how they are doing in other classes. This helps her to build up a strong rapport. It’s also important to talk to parents. Kim is available via email at any time for students or parents. Kim shares her life experiences appropriately with her students and they do the same with her. Kim stresses that she is not her students’ friend – she is still in charge but she builds trust in this way. Another important factor is routine. Kim feels it’s really important that students know what they are going to be doing before they arrive in her classroom. She has taught the expectations of routine explicitly so that the students feel comfortable in class. Humor is also really important to Kim and she believes it helps to establish the essential rapport she has with her students. If you can share a little joke with your students it helps them to bond with you better. All this means that Kim knows her students really well and so she can identify immediately if they are experiencing difficulties – and her relationship with them means she can offer help and support.  

For this kernel of wisdom, Brandon speaks to Shawne Kearney who is a Master Teacher and New Teacher Support Provider and Mentor and is currently teaching 4th Grade in Sonoma State, California. A teacher for over 20 years, Shawne also now teaches adults at Sonoma State University where she specialises in project-based learning and classroom management. Tips for teachers for building positive classroom management systems 1. Pro-active classroom mangement Shawne believes strongly in pro-active classroom management. She greets her students at the door, which is very important especially at the beginning of the year to help you establish a relationship with your students. Also important are: Inclusion activities Team building Establishing common interests Alongside this you need very clear procedures and routines - available in writing and practiced with feedback given. Shawne believes kids want to do well but they need to have a target and they need to know what 'doing well' looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like. It's also important to have clear consequences. Everyone, Shawne says, appreciates knowing the consequence  of a behaviour ahead of time. If a consequence is sprung upon someone, they are likely to get upset.  2. Setting students up for success This is especially important for struggling learners - they should be able to participate on a level they feel comfortable with. Ask questions you know they can answer so they are not 'put on the spot'. When you see they have a great answer, you can whisper in their ear and ask them to share it later when called on by you. This helps them to feel proud and good about themselves. Shawn thinks it's also important to modify work for struggling students. They often work slower but they still need to be able to finish the task you have set and feel success. 3. Teach collaboration and communication skills explicitly Often, teachers put learners in a group and expect them to be able to collaborate and communicate - many adults don't know how to do this! Shawne recommends this video about students giving feedback to illustrate her point: Austin's Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work from EL Education on Vimeo. Shawne teaches these kinds of collaboration and communications skills very explicitly in isolated lessons so that, when they get to those groups lessons like the one in the video above, they know what to expect. Shawn sees this transferring into students' social situations outside the classroom by about half way through the school year. Bonus tip! Self care Make sure you take care of yourself so you are: Rested Patient Rejuvenated Genuinely feeling you enjoy your job Kids know if you are upset, angry or grumpy.

We welcomed Dr. Jessica Bonduris back to the podcast this week for another kernel of wisdom. We first heard from her in episode 2. What are Jessica’s top tips around decision making when leading staff and students through positive climate change? Transparency in decision making – Jessica believes this is particularly important for new administrators where there can be a large element of mistrust from staff members, parents or students. Being transparent allows you to alleviate a lot of the potential tension around decision making. If it’s a shared decision on a school-wide issue you are able to make with an instructional leadership or other decision-making team, be prepared to speak about why it’s important for the school, present the data behind it and discuss it thoroughly. As a leader you also need to be very transparent in what you expect everyone to be doing. This will help you to avoid having to catch people not doing what you expect or being disappointed when this happens. Relationships – any programme which covers social or emotional issues is going to be used not only in the classroom but also in the cafeteria, at recess and at other times so it’s really important to teach students and staff how to use the new initiative in all areas of the school. This also needs to be communicated to parents as well so they can help at home. Principals need to be out of their offices to see the programme being implemented in all the different settings. Especially for new principals, any decision which is implemented in a ‘top-down’ manner has the potential to be disastrous. So it’s much better to work with the leadership group and for them to tell the rest of the school about what is going to happen and why. This way, you are building the leadership of the whole team. Brandon adds that where the leader has already made up their mind about a decision and the group decision making ends up not being genuine, this can lead to serious problems as well. It’s much better to be transparent and make it clear which decisions are shared and which have to be made by the principal alone rather than pretending that all decisions are shared. If you have established good relationships, then everyone will be happy to trust the principal’s judgement.

Mark is Associate Superintendent of Education Services for the Elk Grove Unified Schools District, the 5th largest School District in the State of California. Mark was originally involved in natural resource and wildlife management. This led him to education as a great way to continue to support these areas through teaching children. He taught at elementary and secondary schools and took courses in various topics including administration before taking up Principal positions at different levels for approximately 18 years as well as working in corporate educations as well. However, K-12 has always been Mark's passion and when a position in Elk Grove was suggested to him, he was delighted to take it up. What are the top 3 aspects for a school administrator or team to consider when improving the culture of behaviour at a school site? 1. Start with adult behavior What are the types of adult behavior we need to exhibit ourselves in order to be successful with kids? It's easy to head towards the types of behaviors we want our kids to exhibit in order to be successful but in fact it's much more important to get the adult behaviour right first. 2. It's essential to understand your 'why? Mark loves the following video from Simon Sinek which helps to explain what he means by starting with 'why?' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMOlfsR7SMQ Whatever initiative you are engaged in it's essential to help everyone involved to understand why you are doing it. This leads on to how you are going to do it and finally what the programs are going to be. 3. Resources Mark says there are a lot of resources which can be used like PBIS or, of course, the Pivotal Curriculum: http://us.pivotalglobal.com/instructor-training/  https://www.pbis.org/ Recently, many tools have been developed which can help behavior initiatives so nowadays a school does not have to start from scratch to develop a program itself.

Harriet MacLean is Assistant Superintendent of Education Services for the San Rafael City Schools in Northern California. Harriet moved through a variety of different teaching roles including learning Spanish so she could teach in bilingual classrooms before gaining her administrative services credential and being appointed Principal in the school she had been teaching in for some time. After more Principal roles and coaching and overseeing a group of Principals, Harriet returned to what she describes as 'the job of her life' - at Davidson Middle School San Rafael where Harriet was Principal for 6 years.  At Davidson, Harriet led significant success in improving the attainment of all students and also put in place a system of Restorative Practice. Harriet's Top 3 in Restorative Practice: 1. A very strong, challenging and supportive academic program This has everything to do with culture and climate and it's essential before you begin to add restorative practice. Harriet removed the tracking of students and developed the community by getting people to know each other better by talking to each other. This is only possible if different kinds of people are together in classrooms. There was a culture of separation when Harriet arrived. So a new academic program was implemented with a full ELD program and none of the original tracking of students. In her second year, Harriet introduced community building circles. Suspensions were cut in half which has to be attributed to the new academic program. You have to have a system in which every student feels cared for, valued, supported and challenged academically. 2. Build community  You build community first and then when there is a break down in community, that's where the restorative practices come in. Harriet brought in a lot of traditionally silenced voices - students, parents  - and found out what it was they wanted from the school. She held meetings in the library but eventually also went into living rooms to carry out the research. This enabled the school to bring on board people who were afraid of the changes.  3. Start bringing in the restorative practice Harriet started with Restorative circles. Students fill in a form when there is a conflict and then a meeting is held at which the four restorative questions are asked. After this was in place, Harriet implemented the Peer Court. This is 'suspension diversion' with the student, a parent, an assistant principal who acts as an advocate for the student and a panel of the student's peers who have been trained. The panel produce a contract of restitution and the 'victim' gets to explain what the effect was. Thirdly, Harriet used http://www.nobully.org When an incident of bullying occurs, a circle is convened without the target and run by a teacher or adult. A group of students is brought together which includes the perpetrator of the incident, some leaders and some who watch and do nothing about the situation. The target's own words are used to describe what happened and each member of the circle adds one thing they will do to make the target's experience better. This approach often results in the perpetrator suggesting ways to avoid the behavior in future. Harriet says that in 99% of cases the bullying stops. Using these three practices, the school managed to reduce the suspension rate to 40-50 in four years while student numbers increased to 1,100. Finally, Davidson was the first to implement Beyond Differences which is designed to end social isolation. There is a Beyond Differences club and the first event was 'No one Eats Alone'. The approach is spreading nationwide. Harriet's email address - hmaclean@srcs.org 

Dr Jessica Bonduris is one of the Directors of Elementary Principal Support for the San Francisco Unified School District. Originally an English and History teacher, Jessica then took up various assistant principal positions before becoming an elementary school principal and eventually moved into the supportive position she now has. What are the most important strategies you used as a teacher and as a principal to make connections with and build the most student to adult relationships? Student - teacher relationships: Stand outside your door and greet every student with a smile when they enter the room - make sure there is no tension in your body - every day is a new day. Parent - teacher relationships: Make phone calls to parents before any negativity happens - parents should know your voice so that when you call they wonder what the call is about rather than immediately assuming something is wrong. You have built the relationship in advance and are much more well-received as a result. Ask each parent to send in a letter about their child - what kind of learner they are and what they need. Ask each student to do the same. This helps to create a mental image of the student and how to relate to them. Principal - teacher relationships: Communicate effectively - Formally with staff - send a regular 'Monday Memo' - short bullets around events and pieces of the school vision. Make it clear you expect all teachers to read it every week. Informally with staff - make sure you are out and about - in the recess yard, through the hallways in every classroom. This is essential to help you know what may be coming up and be ready. Principal - parent relationships: Create a newsletter - inform parents about new initiatives several months before it happens Concentrate on 'curb appeal' - this is not just having the grounds of the school well-kept but also being there waving and smiling at parents as they drop off their children, greeting buses and making it clear you are approachable and friendly enough to encourage parents to come in and see you.  

Our first kernel of wisdom comes from Dr. Diane Ketelle, Professor of Education at Mills College in Oakland, CA. Before entering the world of education, Diane was a professional dancer, clown, mime artist and high-wire walker in the circus. She feels it influenced how she approached being a public school teacher, principal and later a public school superintendent. It gave her access to different, helpful, open-ended alternative approaches to problems which arose. Diane says she learned about 'every-day leadership'. The people she met may not have had the same kind of formal education as sometimes we think leaders ought to have but they were able to influence everyone around them in very positive ways, every day. Top 3 tips for leading a positive climate change in a school 1. Listening Diane thinks listening is probably the most under-valued leadership quality. Leaders should talk less and listen more. It's all about listening, not just hearing what people say. We need to find the meaning behind what people are trying to tell you. Leaders meed to be able to understand all the different perspectives that surround them. 2. Inquiry We have thought that masterful leaders find solutions to problems for a long time - if you are a really good leader then you should have the solutions. In fact, Diane believes that the world is too complex for any one leader to have solutions to every problem. Rather, we need to develop a habit of mind to ask questions about what's going on. With the complexity of modern schooling, it's better to be able to find the right questions rather than just jumping to solutions.  Leaders should develop the habit of reflecting through surfacing questions.  3. Courage Although it's difficult to talk about how to develop personal strength or courage, Diane feels her courage comes from her values and privilege. Leaders have to create environments which allow people to practise being courageous. It's essential to develop and respect courage within the organisation in order to enact any kind of positive change.  Brandon also points out this can apply to teachers and their students as well. Please add your comments or questions and we will be sure to mention you in an upcoming episode!

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