FeedForward instead of FeedBack for Positive Change

In this article by Joe Hirsch for Edutopia, he talks about a change in teacher evaluation from top-down assessments of effectiveness and performance, to more of a self-guided and self-assessed reflective process.  Hirsch also connects this movement to:

Marshall Goldsmith's highly acclaimed feedforward concept in which employees are asked to suggest ideas for their own improvement in the future.    . . .   Feedback, by its very definition, is focused on the past, which can't be changed. Feedforward looks ahead at future possibilities that still fall under our control. Feedback tends to reinforce personal stereotypes or negative self-fulfilling prophecies. Feedforward looks beyond what is in favor of what can be.

I think the colours of the cans are reversed . . . Recycling should be Green!  

Working in an international school, I can see elements of the feedforward idea taking shape in my school, both for me as a technology coach and for the faculty that I work with everyday.  Hirsch breaks down the feedforward idea and offers three models for achieving it in your school or for your own professional development, which are receiving Instructional Coaching, conducting Peer Observations and Instructional Rounds, and developing your own Professional Learning Communities.  My current school is still coming to grips with educational technology, integrating technology into the classroom, having a laptop program, and what that all means for teaching and learning.  Many of the teaching faculty still have a bad taste in their mouths from what has happened here in the previous years before me, and from ongoing problems with IT that never seem to get sorted.  There are struggles with leadership as well, who really do not know "what ed tech does all day" and want to use the coaches as subs, technicians or secretaries.  As with any school, there are people who get it, and who are actively looking to shape the future rather than dwell on the past.

I think too much time and energy is wasted dissecting the past, and trying to prevent all of the problems and mistakes of history from appearing again.  Aren't we supposed to learn from our mistakes, even if they belonged to someone else?  Isn't that a primary component of a Growth Mindset?  Constantly looking at the past and thinking "things will not change" and not learning from it are hallmarks of a Fixed Mindset.  So how do we move school leadership forward?  How do we flip their mindset?  How do we shift from feedback mode (dissecting the past) to feedforward (looking to the future and what could be)?

As an ed tech coach, how all of this connects to tech integration, teacher evaluation, professional development/growth/sharing is part of my daily work life.  It's all interconnected and intertwined, so much so that each piece cannot be developed without considering the impact and parallel development of the other aspects.  I think this might be the crux of the problem, the bigger picture that leadership perhaps does not realise.  They don't see how ed tech integration is enmeshed with PD, teacher evaluation/appraisal, goal setting, collaboration, creating a professional culture of sharing and growth, and changing pedagogy.  Perhaps this is why we are treated as ready-made subs to cover classes, glorified technicians who can actually communicate with teachers and students, or someone who has the "skills" to do "complex" jobs like fixing the formatting in a Word document (I kid you not).  Right now, I don't have any solutions to offer here, except to keep fighting the "good fight" and trying to get people to better understand your role through articles like the one above.

"We are all technology teachers" is something that I have been repeating a lot this year.  I just hope that it is starting to sink in, especially in the places where it really needs to be part of the thinking and culture of the school.

Reflecting About Tech PD at My School

I recently read this article from eSchool News about 4 common mistakes made when delivering tech PD, which made me reflect on how these 4 mistakes happen in my school.  Have a read through this article and see if anything in it strikes home with you - http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/11/30/tech-based-pd/?all.

In summary, the 4 mistakes (as I interpret them for my reality here at my school, particularly in the secondary school where I work) should be addressed or considered in the following ways:

1. There is not enough support of Ed Tech to do our jobs most effectively, when teacher's priorities are focussed on their classes/students/curriculum.  In my school, Ed Tech is relatively new and has not had a very positive history/track record over the past two years so it seems to be way down on the list of priorities.  We need help from senior admin and through the strategic plan of the school to make tech integration a long-term priority.  Time and resources need to be dedicated to Ed Tech in order to make change, which involves changing the culture of the school as a whole.  And we all know that changing a school culture can be a long and difficult process.  Without the full support and backing of school leadership, this becomes an almost impossible job.  We are all in this together!
2. Offering tech PD outside of the school day just doesn’t work.  I have experienced this in my previous 3 schools and it still applies here.  When I completed my Action Research project for my masters program in my last school, much of the research supported teacher efficacy is directly linked to training/PD being conducted within the regular school day.  PD that is relegated to after school, on weekends, or optionally during lunch/break times might have some initial success but eventually will fail due lack of teacher engagement.  The common argument of “not enough time to do this” will always be there, and we can’t take away planning time or “free” time (like lunch) to do this.  Training and PD has to be regularly planned/scheduled, and preferably differentiated too.  That is why I have found Speed-Geeking activities to be more effective, well received, and showed greater overall growth across the faculty than traditional "coffee mornings" or "tech lunches".  
3. Do not rely on online or video-based self-guided training – it will fail over time as it falls into disuse and becomes out-of-date.  There is a time and place for its use, but it should not be the only means of delivery of training/pd across the school.  I created a bank of "how to" MacOSX videos when we went through the platform change process with the entire faculty and student body.  Initially, I used these videos to differentiate learning and transitioning to the Mac for faculty depending on their experience with OSX.  This appealed to some of the teachers with some experience and who wanted to learn on their own, and to most of the more advanced users who really only needed to fill in some details of the set up of our school machines.  When the rollout moved to the entire student body the following August, I again used the same bank of videos to differentiate student-led training workshops for about 100 of 300 students.  Since then, the videos have been used repeatedly with new students coming into the school laptop program as part of their tech orientation.  Now that some years have passed, I would be surprised if these same videos are still being used as they would be very out-of-date.  Video training definitely has its uses, so my takeaway here is not to rely on it as the sole means of delivering PD.
4. Forcing the integration of technology into the curriculum also does not work – many teachers (especially in the HS who teach content heavy curriculum/courses) need to see the “value added” or the benefits of doing something with technology first, before they will engage with it. The same argument of “I don't have the time” will always come up and can be properly translated into “it's not a high priority”.  So how do you change this mindset?  How can you change the priority level for teachers?  Part of the answer relates back to #1 above where Ed Tech integration needs to be a school-wide priority which is ongoing.  But be careful here - do not connect integration to teacher evaluation or offering contracts as this will undermine why teachers are doing anything with integration at all (it will be seen as just jumping through hoops or checking off boxes as part of the job).  Instead, integration should be directly connected to professional learning, growth, sharing and collaboration through connecting training/PD to professional goal setting, professional learning communities, and support/coaching/training in and outside of the school.

How do you think these 4 common mistakes apply to your school and your personal/professional reality and perspective?  Did the article make you think about PD in a different way?

Coaching with Mindsets in Mind - Big Takeaways for the Start of a New School Year

Big Takeaways for the Start of a New School Year

Well, the new school year has already gotten underway, but it seems that I am just now coming out of the fog and swirl of activity from the "boom" that marks the first day of classes.  With fall trips behind us, laptop rollouts and MAP testing done and dusted, and classes finally settling into a rhythm, it is time to reflect upon coaching from last year with an eye towards the future . . .

Here are my takeaways and thoughts/extensions for each:

• From my end of year coaching survey, I believe that you can have someone who is a capable or even advanced user/facilitator/integrator of technology in the classroom, who is still in a Fixed Mindset when it comes to educational technology.  They are using/integrating a number of technologies effectively in their classroom, but are very comfortable with what tools they employ and are not open to looking at or experimenting with new tools.  With the train analogy from an earlier post - they are in the lead car but are doing nothing to help move the train forward as a whole, or to lead those in the front of the middle car into the lead car.  They remain siloed and comfortable in what they are doing in their classroom.  Sidebar - this is where the train analogy starts to break down, as the cars represent where a teacher is on the ed tech scale of integration, rather than incorporating their mindset as well (which is perhaps, more important).  So what's the way forward?  Screening for mindset and nudging these types of faculty forward into a Growth mindset through conversations and exposure to new tools which can be specifically employed in their classroom/subject area/discipline can help to shift them into a more collaborative and open stance.  These faculty members might be shifted through an individual conversation or through a conversation with a peer or in their own Personal Learning Network (PLN).  Or perhaps the shift will occur through some "just in time" training that comes up, or through exposure to a new tool or idea during a PD workshop, conference or Speed-Geeking session.  It's hard to identify when or where a shift in mindset will occur with these folks, but seize the opportunity when it arises and turn these folks into teacher-leaders with ed tech.

• Again, from my end of year coaching survey, there are some faculty members who take a passive role when it comes to coaching.  Their stance is that they do not have time to consider new tools or to connect with other teachers in their discipline.  They expect everything to be brought to them for their consumption/consideration where they will passively decide whether it is something worth their time (usually not, or it will be "deferred" until a later time). These faculty members do not engage in the coaching process, are not very self-reflective and are therefore in a Fixed mindset.  They are notoriously hard to reach and to work with, as they would truly rather ignore you as a coach, then actually engage with you to improve teaching and learning.  These folks need to be nudged into a Growth Mindset to engage in the coaching process, which is hard to do.  If they are part of a team (teach a shared course, or are part of a grade level or subject team), then perhaps reaching this particular faculty member is best done through the team.  If their team decides to move forward with a new tool or approach, then they will have to follow along.  The toughest "nut to crack" is the stand-alone teacher who does their own thing and does not really belong to a team (they typically teach all stand-alone classes).  So how do you reach them?  By engaging them in conversation about their classes at every opportunity that presents itself, and by exposing them to new tools along the way.  The Walk-through/Check-ins that I regularly conduct also help with reaching these teachers, as it brings coaching and the conversation directly to them individually and personally.  All of these points of contact will help to nudge them forward, some faster than others of course.

• Working directly with a team of Growth Minded faculty has been very fulfilling professionally for me, as well as for members of the group/team.  This is what I do with the HS Tech Collective, which has grown out of what started as a decision making tech committee, into a collaborative think tank for professional sharing around educational technology.  It is not composed of the most technologically adept or switched on faculty.  The group composition changes each year (there is one only member who goes back to the first year committee, and another who has drifted in and out of the group over the years) and they self-nominate/apply to join the Collective.  The short application acts to screen for mindset, rather than looking at their tech skills or abilities.  By focusing on what people want to learn about and experiment with in their own classrooms, I look for people who are expressly not experts in a particular tool, but are Growth minded towards trying something new and different that they are interested in.  These faculty members have already reflected on their own teaching practice and have self-identified their own need or gap or problem of practice that they want to work on.  Bringing Growth Minded faculty members together around ed tech, to share, collaborate and simply converse with no meeting agenda is transformational for everyone involved, which in turn gets spread back to their departments or co-teachers of shared courses.  Working with and developing the Tech Collective each year has been a game-changer for me as a coach, and is influencing the overall culture of the school as it matures and spreads.  So my takeaway here is simple - keep the Tech Collective going, moving forward, developing and changing the school culture in positive ways.

Building Tech Integration in IB Diploma Courses

A friend in the US recently asked me for some help with how to get started with integrating technology in a school which offers the IB Diploma Program.  She observed that the faculty were very well versed in the IB Diploma and were very experienced teaching their courses, but there was a lot of reluctance with integrating technology in their classes.  She was looking for some examples, particularly in Math and Science, for how teachers are integrating technology in Diploma courses, and was also looking for some recommendations for US-based trainers who might help to move the school forward.  My response to her ended up being pretty long and detailed, and seemed worthy of posting it here for others to read and take ideas from.  So here's most of what I wrote . . .

To get to your question about integrating technology into the IB Diploma, you are correct in your observations about some teachers being very reluctant to consider technology in their classrooms, especially when it comes to teaching IB Diploma courses.  I treat all of the HS faculty as specialists in their fields because they are experts, and with a school the size of ASW (the HS is about 275 students G9-12) the faculty all teach predominantly stand-alone courses (there are very few courses in the HS let alone the DP, that are shared between 2-3 teachers).  HS faculty often cite not having the time to integrate technology, often talk about the deep and wide curriculum to get through, or intimate that they just don't see how something might be used in their course.  Seeing some piece of technology or a tool used within the context of a specific class can really tip the balance here, but finding those examples or the people who are actively "doing it" is the challenge.  Moving people along is tough when they don't want to move, so employing peer coaches/tech leaders within your school, getting faculty to expand their professional network to connect with people outside of their school, and exposing your staff to new ideas/tools/pedagogy has worked for me here (but it is a slow process).  One of the parts of all of this that we continue to struggle with is whether faculty "have to integrate technology" rather than just use it in class, as technology integration is not connected with teacher evaluation in any way.  As a result, we are a school which is technology rich and has lots of great things going on, but we still have teachers who actively resist tech in their classrooms because "they are doing just fine without it, and their IB DP scores are pretty good." 

With all of that in mind, here are some things/tools/ideas/projects/links for stuff that we are doing here at ASW in IB DP courses, which have grown out of our 1:1 Laptop Program (mostly since I changed our program to Macs three years ago).  Much of this has developed from encouraging teachers to allow students to demonstrate/show/share their understanding in more creative ways using digital tools.  Also note that I have tried to list things here which are beyond stuff which would fall within using Moodle or GAfE for communication/collaboration/organisation:

• Teachers flipping their classroom by creating their own short instructional videos (Visual Arts, Economics, Math) or by using online resources with students (Khan Academy)

• Digital audio recording and podcasting/vodcasting for Languages

• Using digital simulations for abstract concepts or experiments (Explore Learning gizmos for Math and the Sciences)

• Students creating video products which demonstrate their learning/understanding in creative ways, such as for their Group 4 Project, using green screens for making History news casts from WWI, creating short visual summaries for acts from a play or chapters from a novel, or creating short animations to demonstrate/summarise a concept or process

• Apps and other specialised features for supporting EAL and Learning Support students (i.e. OpenDyslexic font and browser plug-in, or using text to speech features)

• Providing online databases for students to access scholarly journals and other peer reviewed research

• Connecting and collaborating with experts/students/classes remotely (i.e. our G10 English classes worked with classes in Colorado - https://ahsthisibelieve.wikispaces.com, and our History classes recently participated in some online talks with historians from the UK)

• Graphing calculator simulator (Ti-Smartview) for better instruction and classroom use of the graphing calculators for Math

• Using an iPad with a fine-tip stylus as both a document camera and as an annotation device (instead of an interactive whiteboard)

• Pixton for creating graphical/cartoon summaries which demonstrate a student's understanding (this has been used with Languages and the Sciences very successfully)

• Online and free apps as resources (i.e. interactive unit circle for introductory trigonometry - http://www.touchmathematics.org/topics/trigonometry, Quia.com for online quizzes and review, Videonot.es for annotating online videos, Piktochart for creating infographics, World Newspaper Map - http://newspapermap.com/ for comparing different perspectives on world/current events)

• Using Google Sites to document their CAS projects - all G11-12 students are now doing this, as of this year

• Using Google Docs to document the research process as G11 gets started with their Extended Essay, which can be shared with the IB DP Coord, HS Librarian and their EE Supervisor

• ToK Google Site collection/aggregator using Scoop.it for current events and articles pertaining to different ways of thinking

This list has a few things which all IB DP students are doing/using, and I hope there's enough Math and Science stuff here to get you started.  In terms of an American trainer that might be good for you, we brought in Tom Daccord (http://edtechteacher.org/team/tom/) and also sent some of our new staff to his summer institutes in Boston over the years, which have been very good.  This helped to jump start some of the faculty, to get the ball rolling.

Another project that I have been working on with the IB has been the "Role of Technology in the IB".  A pre-publication version of the guide is currently available on the OCC.  In addition, some of us who were part of the small working group in the summer also presented a mock-up of the tech integration "AID lens" at the recent ECIS ICT conference in Munich.  A copy of our presentation "Thinking More Deeply about the Role of Technology Integration in the IB Programmes" is here, and the short video that has been prepared by the IB is shown below:

What is important to consider with all of this, is that some IB Diploma teachers are reluctant to engage with technology integration as they do not see how to incorporate technology into their lessons or units, and they do not have the time to devote to learning and using some new tools.  But tech integration shouldn't be focused on just tools - it should have a broader view of technology and the integration of technology.  The more I think about the "AID lens", the more I like it, as it has this broader view of tech integration leading towards tech literacy.

Remember those reluctant teachers who don't use any technology in their class, at all?  Are they really not doing anything for tech integration and building technology literacy?  Depends on how you measure or look at it.  Take for example, two History teachers who have assigned a research project focussed on different aspects of WWI.  Teacher A has made the final product a 2000 word essay, while Teacher B wants students to be creative and produce a short video using a green screen as a news cast from the trenches.  With the SAMR model, does the essay extend into the transformative levels, or does the news cast video?  Many people see the video project as incorporating more tech, so it must be higher up the SAMR scale.  Through the "AID lens", both projects come out about even as they both contain essential elements of Agency (ways of Being), Information (ways of Knowing) and Design (ways of Doing).  Both projects are building tech literacy, just with different student products.  Don't get me wrong here, I am not against the SAMR model (it certainly has its uses and it is really good for helping teachers think about tech integration).  But how do you measure if something is transformative?  Why would the video project be better for student learning?  Just because it's flashier?

I have been struggling with this for awhile now, but I am beginning to see how the "AID lens" brings a different perspective into play (which I think is worth considering).  Have a look at the "AID lens" and think about how it could be used in curriculum planning . . . what do you think?

Some after thoughts . . . here are a few more IB applicable tech tools to consider:

• Desmos online graphing calculator is wickedly good and you can get it on your iPad too
• Wolfram Alpha - online computational knowledge engine is very good at math . . . try entering an equation into it and getting it to solve it for you . . . and then walk through the steps for solving the equation one by one . . . 

Changing Mindsets . . . but not in a good way!

What do you do when someone's ambition and vision, collides with their skill set and technical abilities?  As a coach, what do you do when a person's mindset changes right before your eyes?  [this is the change that isn't very good to see]

So here's the story, the situation, the conundrum that I find myself thinking about for the last few days.  I will try to keep this as anonymous as possible, as I think this through as a write it all down.   But don't expect any answers here . . . I haven't got that far with my thinking.  Maybe you might have some input on all of this for me . . .

There is a colleague that I work with who embarked on a big project to revamp the online presence for part of the school.  They inherited a spaghetti map of different systems and platforms which wove together a piecemeal online existence, from their predecessor.  That previous colleague essentially built bits and pieces of the overall resource over a number of years, using whatever tool was on-hand, convenient, or in their field of view at the time.  In short, it is/was a mess and needed to be completely overhauled and replaced.

Enter my new colleague who fought and fought with maintaining this old plate of spaghetti, and came to hate it.  Once they had reached their tipping point where they wanted to fix it, change it, update it and make it their own, we started working on it together through regular coaching sessions.  My new colleague (how about I just call them Bob from now on) . . . Bob . . . started conducting a ton of research into what other schools were doing, their look and feel, their functionality and content, and their audience.  Bob also had a pretty good idea about what they wanted, as he had done a similar project at their previous school with much success.  The big difference between these two projects, is that the previous school did not have a system/platform already in place and they hired a developer to build everything for the school.  In the here and now, there is no big budget to pay someone, and the culture is more of a DIY project.

So Bob took it upon himself to rebuild everything from scratch, and made this their goal last year.  By the end of last year, we had built parts of the new system, but had not "released" it for use yet.  In other words, the old plate of spaghetti was still on the table and was still being served to the school.  At the start of this year, Bob really wanted to focus on building the last remaining pieces of the system and to get everything up and running as soon as possible.  As the beginning of the school year got busier and busier (as they do), this project got put on the back burner to simmer and stew.  We revisited it and worked on it periodically during our coaching sessions, but more often than not, something else would take precedence and would be more immediate.  When we did work on the project, development was often slow or at a standstill.  In Bob's own words, he often "could not remember how to do something" or "could not make a decision on what he wanted."  It was one step forward and three steps back, but we kept com in back to it, as it was/is important.

Then Bob dropped the bomb on me . . . he told me that he is so stressed out by the project and his inability to make any progress on it, that it is affecting his health.  Boom!  In order to preserve his health, he was going to drop the while thing, and perhaps we can salvage some of the pieces that we have already built.  "Thank you for your time and effort and patience in coaching me, but I can't work on this any longer."  Boom!!

What do you do when someone's ambition and vision, collides with their skill set and technical abilities?  The project involved rebuilding resources which are really important to the school, which support teaching and learning across school divisions.  Bob has a vision for what this could be, and would use it in his teaching everyday.  However, Bob really does not understand why he could not grasp how to use these tools to build his vision, and why it is so hard for him.  This is the clash or the difference between what they want to do, and having the skills/expertise to accomplish that goal.  As a tech coach, I see this as part of my job - to bridge the gap, which is what we have been working on for almost a year now.

What do you do when a person's mindset changes right before your eyes?  In the beginning, Bob clearly had an growth mindset towards this project - he saw it as a challenge and a point of deep learning on his part to work through it.  But all of that changed gradually as the frustration grew and the health issues started building.  Are these two things connected?  Bob seems to think so.  I, on the other hand, think that it has more to do with the steep learning curve that the project represents, combined with growing health issues related to his age . . . both difficult subjects to brooch in a conversation or coaching session.  With Bob's growing frustration and lack of progress, this turned into a downwards spiral which resulted in his mindset flipping over into the fixed position.  He is now thinking that he cannot learn these skills and tools, and that this project is just too big for him the tackle.  He even said that he will just leave it for someone else to fix and build once they are gone.  Totally defeated.  Bob no longer sees it has job to do this kind of work, and knows the school is not going to pay a developer to build it for him.  Totally stuck.

So what do I do with this project?  On one hand I could jump in and build it for Bob, but that is not my role or my job, and does not really involve coaching in any way.  Furthermore, Bob would not be in a position to maintain and further develop their system from whatever point I brought it up to . . . I would be signing up to be the gatekeeper and custodian for his system.  On the other hand, I could just accept that Bob is giving up and try to salvage some of the work we have already done, but that would effectively making part of the plate of spaghetti taste a little better, while at the same time making the plate bigger.  Not a very good outcome.  So what should I do, to move forward with this project and with Bob as a colleague whom I coach?  Any ideas?

Unprofessional Development

In thinking about and reflecting upon last year as a tech coach, it is hard not to dwell on the bad bits and negative stuff that happened over the year.  It's not that there wasn't anything good to think about . . . there were lots of victories and advancements big and small.  In fact, I would characterise last year as a series of really high-highs and low-lows.  Kind of a Karsh mountain-scape straight out of China.  Everyone always remembers the bad bits though - it's just human nature.  Last year, I had three events where people acted unprofessionally towards me, so I am going to devote my first posting of the school year to reflecting on some positive take-aways from those events.  First off though, I will not be getting into the who said/did what . . . no airing of dirty laundry here.  I have moved past all of that now - the perspective of time does wonders.

So here is my list of top-three take-aways from last year:

1. Perception can be everything - As the first tech coach in the HS here, how the people that I work with view and understand my position/role might not coincide with my day-to-day reality.  I am always there to help with anything tech-related, be it big or small, complex or simple, physical or digital, systems or tools based.  As a result, some people see me as being in charge of anything and everything that goes "bing", has a screen on it, or uses electricity (this is part of what I am talking about when I say "guilty by competence").  One of the incidents from last year revolved around what a faculty member thought was my job, as I was helping them with a number of issues and challenges.  But in fact, I was just trying to help mediate between Tech Services and the teacher, and support both sides of the equation.  This  ended up in a big mess and some heated talk when some decisions were made which were not in the teacher's favour.  My take-away . . . try to ensure that the people I work with understand my role, what I am in charge of and when I am merely a facilitator or mediator.  Being a teacher is so much simpler as everyone knows what your "job description" is . . . being a coach is a lot more fuzzy in many people's minds!
2. Sometimes you can't fix it and you just have to wait - Last year, I was put in a very uncomfortable position with an administrator where I had to sit on my hands and wait it out, no matter how illogical and irrational the "process" became.  I was unable to affect any positive change in the situation, nor could I inject any rational thought into the matter at hand.  Instead, I had to just wait for the year to end so that positive change could happen with the start of the new year.  My take-away . . . have faith that cooler/rational heads will prevail in the long run, and that things will be "put right" with time and patience.  Sometimes it is hard to give up that time, to have that patience, and to have confidence that things will get sorted out properly . . . this is one case that I will look back on that worked out in the long run.
3. You can't help everyone, and you can't make everyone happy - As a coach, my position means working with the entire HS faculty.  But what do you with a faculty member who is in a really bad place, and who is negative about everything concerning the school?  On a sports team, this would be like having the un-coachable player on the team . . . and there are no cuts and no trades.  Working with this faculty member became impossible as the year wore on, as they were prone to very unprofessional outbursts and rants directed at anyone nearby.  Unfortunately, I was on the end of one of those outbursts . . . but had no recourse other than to report it and move on.  Not a satisfactory conclusion by any means, but the person in question was leaving at the end of the year anyways so Admin thought it was best left alone.  My take-away . . . when working with faculty, they have to be in the right mindset in order to be receptive to coaching, must be internally motivated to learn and grow, and timing is everything (just-in-time learning rules).  If any one of these conditions is amiss for any reason (let alone all three of them), then the act of coaching may be poorly received or ignored altogether.  And sometimes, these conditions and the mindset of the faculty are completely out of your control.

Have you ever had negative incidents at school which were unprofessional in nature, that seemed to overshadow everything?  Did these incidents cause you to doubt yourself, or make you think that you somehow doing a poor job?  Was it hard to move past these kinds of incidents?  Reflecting upon them, and trying to pull some "lessons learned" from them is the best way to move on and take charge of things which you have no control over.  What stories do you have?

The Case of the Blue Chinese Teapot

Accidents happen . . . we all know that.  Some accidents are more dire than others, some have little or no consequences, and some make you take pause and think.  This morning, my son accidentally broke our old Chinese teapot.  It wasn't particularly special, expensive, or irreplaceable.  We can get a new one from Chinatown back home in the summer without a problem.  However, it was used everyday by my family for about 30 years . . . now that I think about it, it's something that I have had my entire adult life since university days when I was first on my own.  Same old teapot, new handles, many new lids, new tea cosy . . . but the same old teapot filled with stories and memories.  One in particular that I am fond of involves having my Tech Director and officemate over for dinner when we were living in Istanbul.  When Colin went to pour himself a cup of tea, he stopped and remarked that such a great old teapot must hold a lot of stories.  Which it does . . . or rather, did.

The exact Chinese blue teapot that I had before it went for a tumble,
with a simple blue and white pattern and translucent rice grains
embedded in the porcelain.  Apparently available online for $30.
<http://www.laurelleaffarm.com/pages/kitchen&table/vintage-
rice-china-teapot-large-blue-white-Chinese-porcelain-tea-pot-
Laurel-Leaf-Farm-item-no-u71532.htm#.U0PeOBa-aJU>

Which got me thinking about this whole accident this morning and relating it to ed tech and coaching . . . bear with me for a minute.  In a round about way, this accident relates to working with the reluctant tech teacher with my work as a tech coach.  I don't blame my son at all for what happened.  Instead, I am upset with my wife who put the teapot in a precarious place on the little kitchen island rather than on the side counter.  She has been doing this since we moved into this house in Poland, just out of convenience and ease.  You see, the kitchen island is right there, directly in front of the door into the kitchen.  It's been 5 years of me moving the teapot to the side counter, me saying please don't put the teapot there, and me saving the teapot from being swept off of the island a few times.  It's not that the side counter is any farther away from the kitchen door.  What it really comes down to is convenience, comfort levels, and old habits.  Which is where I made the connections with ed tech and coaching.

Still with me?  In a previous posting (Some thoughts on working with the "reluctant tech teacher") I commented on some strategies for working with that teacher who just does not want to engage with technology in their teaching practice.  In that posting, I identified "fear of change" as being a major factor in a teacher's resistance to change.  After this morning's accident, I also think that comfort and convenience is another factor that needs to be considered.

Now, I'm not talking about someone being lazy or complacent.  What I see is someone who has become comfortable with their teaching practice, where their "go to", "tried and true" classroom practices are right there in their mind . . . comfortable, convenient, and ready to go.  So why change, despite being shown a different technique or tool?  Why do something different, despite being warned of possible negative outcomes or consequences?  Why change when it is much easier not to?  Do you see the connection?  My wife has continued to place the teapot on the kitchen island, despite my interventions, despite my warnings, despite my constant/repeated demonstrations of where the teapot should go.  In the end, it was a simple and easy solution (placing the teapot on the side counter), but it was never adopted.

In my other posting, I said that "a person will only undergo a process of change if it is easier for them to make the change, rather than to keep with the status quo".  I think this still applies in this case, but the motivation to keep with the status quo is comfort and convenience, rather than fear of change.  Now that the teapot is gone to the rubbish heap, change of habit has become forced and must happen.  With respect to ed tech and coaching the reluctant teacher who is stuck in their comfort zone, how do you "break their teapot"?  In my other posting, all of the strategies that I outlined there have not worked on this kind of teacher, save for the last one.  To break this reluctant teacher out of their comfort zone, perhaps a stronger course of action needs to take place like connecting technology integration to teacher evaluation.  This is what my school is currently in the process of formulating.  The school is already bringing in a new evaluation system for implementation over the next two school years, and the group of tech coaches is working on embedding the ISTE Standards for Teachers (formerly called the NETS-T Standards) into the new system.  For some, this will be no big deal at all - they are already meeting these standards everyday.  For others, it will simply be a case of tweaking their classroom practice in places, to meet all of the standards.  But for some, the reluctant teachers with technology, they will be forced to change their practice to meet the standards for tech integration . . . which they never have been forced to do before.  This one change will effectively "break their teapot".

Will this really work?  Well, give it a year or two and I will let you know what happens.  And we should have a new teapot by then . . . I wonder if the new one will last another 30 years or more?

Some thoughts on working with the "reluctant tech teacher"

I was just reading an open question on a forum which asked about how to reach/teach the teacher who is reluctant to use/integrate/try technology in their classroom.  It had quite a lively (and long) discussion going which drew me in to reading through all of the postings.  And then I found myself thinking and writing a response myself . . . but I ran out of room in the comment posting!  So here is my entire response as I wrote it . . . before having to cut out some bits to make it fit onto the forum:


Educational technology acts a lens focused on a classroom, a lesson, an activity . . . and the teaching and learning that is going on there.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the lens magnifies everything . . . . the good, the bad, the ugly, and the awesome.  This discussion began with questions about the reluctant or techno-phobic teachers and how to encourage them to use more technology.  Someone earlier on mentioned that teachers need to "let go of the reigns", which I think is a huge component that sometimes gets missed in this discussion.  Teachers know that technology is a lens on their pedagogy and teaching practice, and many are reluctant to let go of control in their classroom as it could/might/will reflect poorly on them if/when things go wrong.  Some of these teachers frequently experience problems with technology just in their day-to-day work which they cannot solve - why would they want to put themselves on display in front of a class of students if there is a chance of public failure?

Time frequently comes up as a major reason/excuse why a teacher is not using technology in their classroom.  They don't have time in their course to do something different, or the time in their day to look at something new.  They don't have time to learn a new tool.  If they used a new tech tool with their class and it failed, they don't have the time to fix it, time to plan an alternative lesson, or any way of making up for the lost time.  Then there is always the argument where they want to see absolute proof that this tech tool will save them time and will positively affect teaching and learning in their classroom . . . otherwise they cannot see investing the time to learn and implement the new tool.

So I think these two threads are intertwined and connected to one another.  As a tech coach, I frequently hear the "time" argument in all of its different flavours from faculty.  But what I think is really happening is that the time argument is thrown at you as it is hard to argue against or refute - not only is it amorphous and ever-changing, but it is also very personal to each teacher.  The time argument is masking the real underlying reason, which is fear - the fear of letting go, of trying something which might fail, and of stepping aside from being the "sage on the stage" or the expert in the room. As a computer science teacher, I have long been accustomed to not being the absolute expert on everything . . . all of my students typically had a very singular and narrow field of CS that they were intensely interested in and they typically knew more about that one particular topic than anyone within 100 km.  So not being the expert is something that I have long been comfortable with.  However, many teachers are not, and prefer to stick with their tried and true methods to get through their curriculum rather than facing the fear of change.

Change is a powerful and frightening thing.  It can be hugely motivating, yet completely paralyzing as well.  So how do we address this fear?  I once read somewhere that a person will only undergo a process of change if it is easier for them to make the change, rather than to keep with the status quo.  The need to change has to come from within, has to be self-realized and internalized, or else there will be resistance and push-back.  So how do you do that?  Well, there's lots of pieces to the puzzle that when combined, seem to have worked for me which include:
   * Just in Time Learning - providing training individually or in small groups which is directly focused on a tool which will be employed immediately
   * Exposure - showing off a variety of tools to show faculty what's out there and to give them ideas of how they might be used in the classroom (think Speed-Geeking here)
   * Connecting with Others - seeing and connecting with other teachers who are using a particular tool in the same discipline/class/course/grade level as they work in, provides teachers with the evidence they need to move forward
   * Tech Coaches and Peer Coaches - having access to people in-house who are available and accessible is huge; not all schools can afford to have tech coaches, but you can leverage the abilities and talents of those who are already in the building
   * Admin Support - having a built-in underlying support (which could mean connecting tech integration with evaluation) can really help to get things moving . . . some people need this kind of nudge before moving forward.