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Dr. John Littlewolf grew up in the city of Cass Lake on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation of Ojibwe, one of six bands comprising the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. He began his law enforcement career with the white earth tribal police in 2009. During his career, his positions included patrol officer, domestic violence and sexual assault investigator, and criminal investigator. He’s currently a conservation officer. He holds a Bachelors in Criminal Justice, a Masters in Public Safety Executive Leadership, Masters in Leadership & Change, and a PHD in Leadership & Change. John has always been an advocate for his Indigenous community. John is also a published author of a book of brilliant poetry and a self described activist. What does poetry do for us? Poetry has the power to reveal the common emotions and experiences that a group of people go through. Take John’s poetry for instance. His poetry teaches us about resistance, ancestral wisdom, fighting for freedom, and more. When talking about his start with poetry, Dr. Littlewolf connects poetry to his early life experiences. It was a way to process the emotions and thoughts that came up days later. He sees it as a gift that will remain a part of him no matter what. “For me poetry is...It was always there. it was this underlying river, if you will. It was always there in my experiences. It would be delayed. So I would go through something, whether it be loss or an experience and days later, what I believe was my consciousness, or my spirit, was putting it together...and days later, it would become something I never expected. Some of them, I look at them like oh my God did I write that?” No need for rules Being able to transmit emotion across space and time is a necessary part of the work to fight for justice and celebrate Indigenous culture according to Dr. Littlewolf. He shares that being able to feel these intense emotions after reading something by a poet was what inspired him in the first place. He wished that in his school, he could have been introduced to it sooner. Reading and writing minus all the rules and the standards removes the barriers that may inhibit students from writing for expression, creativity, and growth. “Nobody told me that you could take away the rules. You could just write what you feel and you don't have to write in a box. I didn't discover that until I was 26. And I wish I had discovered it sooner. I wish there would have been a teacher or a mentor or something along the way there.” How poetry connects with identity and activism Oftentimes, where poetry and activism intersect is right alongside identity. The things you may fight for or against are usually something that affects you to your core. So being able to translate those feelings into words can be therapeutic and helpful to your own activism. Not to mention, as a teacher, it’s a way of understanding where your students are coming from. If you used it to say I would like you to write down what you're feeling right now, that could make a real difference in teacher-student relationships as opposed to making assumptions about why certain students are behaving a certain way. John mentions how much it uplifts him to see the younger generations in his Ojibwe community achieving more and more success each year. These celebrations and the ability of Indigenous populations to overcome the deeply rooted effects of settler colonialism and violence are what current and future generations need to know about. So the writing continues. Of course, the barriers are still there. The U.S. still fails to meet the demands being made for justice. And so once again, the writing will continue. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
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Do you ever come across an exciting resource that would be perfect for your teachers’ professional development but don’t know if you have enough in the school budget to invest in it? Today, I’m going to help you find multiple ways of funding your PD or your teachers' PD so that they can create engaging class experiences for students and you can be your best leader self. Looking at Title I If you’re a new administrator or starting to look through all of the new funding you’ve been given this year, it’s time to consider how you can get the money needed for PD. First off, Title I and Title II are the most common sources for funding professional development. Here are examples of what Title I funding can be used for:
“Providing greater decision making authority and flexibility to schools and teachers in exchange for greater responsibility for student performance.” This is where survey tools would be useful for being able to assess student/teacher/family experience. You can also use this funding to build the foundation for making shared decisions and leading in collaboration with school stakeholders. This will set your school up for sustainable success beyond one year. The research shows that this type of model which puts together multiple stakeholder viewpoints, leads us to making better decisions. Another purpose of Title I is that it should be used to elevate the quality of instruction. This could be achieved through collaboration and group coaching programs. On to Title II Title II funding can be used for:
Teacher mentoring could be a great way to get to the last point of hiring and retaining those teachers and principals with excellent skills. When we talk about studying data, I encourage you to go past the numerical data and look at perception data as well. There is definitely an emphasis on leader PD here, so use it well! Bonus: Title IV Title IV is one of the lesser known options for professional development. Just a note that this can’t be used for substitutes who aren’t attending PD that is funded through Title IV. Title IV allows uses of funds for:
“If we are in spaces, where we are trying to foster a school community that is antiracist, that advances intersection of justice, yes, we will likely decrease bullying, we will likely increase relationship building...All of these are kind of outcomes of programs that develop and facilitate generative conversations about race and anti racist policy and having an anti racist class culture. So, I think that's not explicitly named here but any programming, any professional development around this, is going to contribute to all of these outcomes that are listed in the language.” Don't forget about ESSER funding ESSER funding is the last option I’m going to name. This is relevant to COVID as it stands for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief. There are actually three different subsections under this but they all have some overlap. All three types of ESSERs can be used for planning and implementing summer learning, providing mental health services and supports, and activities that address the unique needs of students who have been historically underserved by school systems. ESSER I and ESSER CARES can be used for principals and leaders to address school specific needs. This can cover many things like raising capacity for leaders to advance student achievement. ESSER II and ARP ESSER can be used to adjust learning loss among all students in all subgroups and administer high quality reliable assessments. Project based learning, what I teach in my PD programs, is one of the best ways to have students show that they are retaining the information they’re learning and getting high quality skills from it. You can use this funding for contracts in the upcoming school years so you have a sustainable runway for ongoing, quality professional development. So, invest wisely, and don't let that money go to waste! I hope this was a helpful, comprehensive guide for you on how you can pay for your teachers PD or your own. Be sure to take advantage of the unique funding that schools have received this year and last, due to COVID, so your school can thrive from that much needed PD. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
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Taryn Givan lives in Texas and holds a Bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Central Arkansas. She also holds a Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction from Texas A&M University and principal certification. She has served 19 years in the K-12 setting as a teacher, assistant principal, and adjunct professor. Now in her 20th year, Taryn is the Founder and CEO of Divergent Educational Consulting LLC as well as an independent educational consultant and service specialist with Better Lesson. She is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She enjoys dancing, reading, writing, listening to music, among other things. One of her greatest accomplishments is being a mother to a beautiful 19 year old and a wife to her husband. Her motivation each day stems from Galatians 6:9. Leader in Me and Campus Leadership Teams explained Leadership is something we can constantly redefine, especially when it comes to our students. The organization called the Leader in Me aims to empower more educators with practices that connect culture, academics, and leadership. They use methods like the 7 habits of highly effective people and social emotional learning to increase student confidence, give students more leadership skills, help school staff feel supported, and drive school achievements. They use Campus Leadership Teams to help carry out these frameworks and methods. Campus Leadership Teams are made up of the campus principal and key school leaders like administrators, counselors, academic support specialists, etc; They are responsible for the development, implementation, and monitoring of the targeted improvement plan, monitoring student performance, and determination of student interventions and support services. Not only do they develop educational policies for the school based on observation, data, and research, but they also make sure that there are resources available to support these changes. Communicating with your team There are benefits to collaborating with other school leaders on campus. When a leadership team brings on people with diverse experiences and identities, everyone in it can learn how certain parts of school policies or their school culture may be fine for that person in the group, but harmful for this other person and some students. The first thing these teams need to do is gather the information they need. These teams can instruct principals on how to listen to students of color and practice more inclusivity. When getting together with the other members in your group, you can do quick check-ins in the form of “huddles” and longer full meetings. Huddles can be done on Monday morning where you and the team huddle up in an open area. Each person goes around the circle going over anything that might’ve come up over the weekend and then announcing some key dates coming up that week. “Our huddles, just standing up in a circle, sometimes I go to my right, sometimes I go to my left, and we will go around—big rocks for the week, this is what I need from you, etc, all hearts clear, hands in the middle, go!” Make all children feel seen and heard Oftentimes, adults in school will only see children as an extension of the communities they come from. Taryn notes how teachers may look at a child and be unfair with how they measure their potential and gifts. School leaders need to do more to ensure that not only are students from all backgrounds accepted, but they are allowed to be whoever they want to. Kids are beyond capable when it comes to shared decision making! They know what they like, what’s interfering with their education, and what might be better. They have the potential to contribute amazing ideas about representation and diversity in schools whether they’re in elementary school or high school. Everyone can offer different perspectives because all our experiences are so unique. It’s all about bringing something new to the table. So if you want to make sure your Campus Leadership Team gets the right results, part of the information gathering should be getting direct feedback from students. “I think that if you want to learn how to best meet their needs, we have to involve the kids...In order for us to really have a mindset shift, we're going to have to make sure that we're bringing children to the table and giving them an opportunity to really share with us.” One of the methods that Leader in Me uses is the seven habits of highly effective people. You may have heard these habits in other contexts, but it is something that can be implemented in a school too. The seven habits are being proactive, beginning with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek first to understand then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw. But keep in mind that it’s not enough to just have these habits live on a poster on a wall, they need to become part of the school culture. In meetings, use the same language that’s part of the Leader in Me program. If you want to be a school who practices the Leader in Me ways, you need to bring in the actual coaches from the organization so they can properly implement the curriculum and the culture. Be sure to do your own research going into this as well. It takes a commitment to get to those goals but it is so worth it! To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
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In this episode, we are talking about look fors, co-constructing them with teachers, and how you can make them clear for your students. An important part of creating effective professional development is setting clear expectations. Look fors help establish standards for high quality ideas in the classroom and close the gap between learning what to do and actually doing it. A look for is a clear statement that explains an observable teaching or learning behavior, strategy, outcome, product, or procedure. Observers have a list of look fors to watch for when they visit a classroom or examine student work. Teachers can reflect on look fors to compare their teaching practices to current standards, explain what they learn through professional development, and be able to make their own descriptions for practices in their classroom. School and district leaders can use look fors to define standards for all classrooms, identify improvements that could be made, and unify a school around a common goal or practice. But something that breaks away from the traditional style of observation look fors is co-constructing them with teachers. The Danielson rubric is a good example of the traditional look fors for assessing a teacher's performance. The only issue is that it doesn’t get clear on what the look fors are or emphasize collaboration with teachers. “Ideally, we actually want to co-construct these look fors with teachers, so that it's a collaborative effort. We are sharing in the process of determining what a great class looks like, sounds like, feels like, to be a part of.” It is beneficial to give teachers a say in the creation of these look for lists because it makes them feel more personally connected to the process. When they take ownership it is much more motivating than if the observer were to do the planning on their own. In the Danielson rubric, there are four domains. Those are:
Rubric three (instruction) is what we’re going to focus on for right now. In this domain, there are several components. Those components tell observers how well teachers are communicating with students, questioning and discussing techniques, engaging students in learning, using assessment in instruction, and finally, demonstrating flexibility and responsiveness. The language used in the rubric grading from lowest to highest is unsatisfactory, basic, proficient, and distinguished. Frankly, I don’t quite see the point in actually giving attention to those lower three ratings. It’s harmful to teachers and students to set standards that are getting some to strive for proficient or even basic as opposed to everyone aiming for distinguished. The criteria needed to get distinguished in the first component are as follows:
Here’s how I would co-construct those look fors:
Feel free to use these as examples as you co-construct your own look fors. “I think we inspire a lot of people when we just show them what's possible. When we create from research, from this base of well documented Danielson rubric pieces, we can innovate from there; we don't need to stay there, right, we can push toward a more student-centered model of look fors. We can push to co-create with teachers and not just leave this as something that every school is going to adopt when it's potentially not that clear.” For more support on instructional coaching and more PD for teaching and leading, you can subscribe to my Micro Course Library here. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
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Lejla Bilal Maley currently works as a manager of product at McGraw Hill International. She is also a co-founder and consultant at Transform·Ed Collaborative. She has seven years of ESL and foreign language teaching experience in the K-12 and Higher Education setting, including The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where she resides. She holds a Bachelor’s in Linguistics, a Master’s in Applied Linguistics and TESOL and a Ph.D. in Leadership and Change. Her research focus is on global virtual teams (GVTs) and the experience of teaming at a distance. She regularly presents at international conferences on education leadership, global virtual teaming, and team science. Her publications include topics such as professional learning communities, adaptive leadership, and team science. She is the Past President of the Ohio TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages). Her hobbies include walks and hikes with Skywalker, her pup, listening to podcasts, and traveling with friends and family. Adaptive leadership is necessary when addressing long-standing challenges that have no easy solution. This often typically involves a leader working together with their school community to find solutions to such challenges. As a group, so much can be accomplished such as eliminating practices, policies, or norms that do not stand to benefit everyone within the group or setting. Adaptive leadership asks us to identify our own biases and inequitable practices first because the inner work enables change on a larger scale. Adaptive leaders are always open to feedback, even if it’s critical. They show that they’re willing to make students, teachers, and faculty feel heard and given fair opportunities. This model is a way to stop going after buy-in from stakeholders. It is more effective and takes some of the pressure off of your shoulders as a school leader. You’re more likely to get ideas and solutions from others that you hadn’t thought of before. It also shows that you aren’t simply doing what you think is best for everyone else but actually doing what others say is more equitable. Stakeholders feel valued when you create space at the table for everyone. As a result, schools actually make better decisions than when leaders try to make important decisions on their own. “So really it's engaging in a collective process of identifying value that others bring, once you can understand that within yourself. And then two, I think it's the need to invite stakeholders across many different aisles to take part in the work that's identified. Once we can lay down our egos, our experience, our authority, anything that creates power, and this distance of expertise, then we can have a real conversation about what truly are the challenges we're facing here and what sort of learning is required to even tackle these challenges.” A 2016 Center on Education Policy (CEP) study found that nearly half of teachers who surveyed reported that their input is not considered in school-wide decisions and that they feel frustrated and excluded. As leaders, we know we can do much better than these numbers. It’s easy to say “It’s those other schools; my school wouldn’t reflect that.” But the truth is, we only see what we want to see. We don’t get to hear and see everything that happens in the daily setting of teachers and faculty. We can’t assume that everyone’s happy and benefitting from the things in place. It’s good to want better. There’s always room for progress in this work. Adaptive leadership teaches us that we have to take some ownership of problems that arise so that we can collectively problem solve with those that are being affected. Incorporating adaptive leadership goes hand in hand with bringing in more social justice. To promote justice, there needs to be more self-awareness. When thinking about decisions that affect the people within your school, ask yourself, who is benefitting from these things and who is not? How can I distribute some of the power that’s on my shoulders to students, teachers, and faculty? Change this significant doesn’t have to be scary. Change can be empowering! Here are Dr. Bilal's recommendations for engaging in adaptive leadership:
To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
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Today, we’re examining the GROW Model lesson from my new micro course library. The library is filled with short but impactful video lessons that you can use as personalized PD for yourself and your teachers! Breaking Down the G.R.O.W. Model The GROW Model stands for goal, reality, options, and what you’ll do next. This model is used to structure effective instructional coaching conversations. There are four stages of this model. The first is to determine what the teacher’s idea of success is for their classroom. What would they like to be able to do or achieve after the coaching session? How does embodying this goal feel to students? Knowing this goal allows us to keep on the right track and ensures that we’re centered in the teacher’s vision. You can enhance this first stage with using a rubric and making the goals S.M.A.R.T.I.E. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound, Inclusive, and Equitable). “We [might] say the end goal is for students to be able to write these narratives and we have the teacher describe what that all will look like, sound like, feel like for students.” Reality phase The next phase is Reality. In this part I ask the teacher to think about a range of things such as: What’s going on in your class right now? What have you been working on? What are the challenges you’re facing? These give you, as the coach, an idea of what the teacher's current reality is and what kind of things the students are experiencing in the class. It’s important to establish this because we can’t make or measure progress without first marking where we start. Options Phase Then we move on to what our options are when moving forward. Here you want to open up to any ideas on how to work through these roadblocks that have been identified. Don’t limit the possibilities! Encourage teachers to share anything that they've always wanted to try. Of course, if teachers are struggling to come up with anything, that’s okay too. When this happens, I like to suggest coaches create an online document where you can store new strategy ideas anytime you come across one in your day. When you think of all the podcasts you listen to, all the meetings, things we’ve seen others try, recent PD, etc. there are lots of places to collect new teaching strategies. “If, in the moment, you take a glance at your doc and you don’t have anything, I think it’s really important to identify a website or resource hub of some sort, that you can go to during a coaching call so that you can bring it up on the laptop together and just browse through what’s available.” After you’ve gone through the options together and listed them out, you can decide which one you want to try for now. Lastly, what’s next? Now it’s time to take action. Come up with one to three next steps that you will work on before the next coaching session. I find it to be super important to assess where we’re at during each new session. For example, I’ll say things like “Last time we met, you said, in the W phase, you were going to do this next. Did we achieve that goal? Can we move on to a new goal or do we have to revisit that goal?” Now that you’ve learned all about the GROW model, I want you to create a coaching log that you will share with your teachers while coaching. This could be a single Google doc with a table that’s split into four sections for each stage of the model. Make sure to include key questions that the teacher is going to answer. I hope you were inspired by this behind the scenes look at one of my micro course library trainings. If you want to start learning all the best strategies that’ll help you feel more confident, increase equity, and save you time, then click HERE to see what you’ll unlock in my Micro Course Library. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
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Sheldon L. Eakins, Ph.D. is the Founder of the Leading Equity Center and host of the Leading Equity Podcast. With over 11 years in education, he has served as a teacher, principal, and Director of Special Education. Dr. Eakins has a passion for helping educators accomplish equitable practices in their schools. He has earned a B.S. degree in Social Science Education, an M.S. degree in Educational Leadership, and a Ph.D. in K-12 Education. Right now, the need for equity training at schools is is in high demand. According to Dr. Eakins, the goal is for school members to get all the tools they need to take charge of their own social justice efforts. This is an important shift for them to make because when an outside trainer is coming in once a month, the participants are expecting the trainer to tell them what to do. But in order for the trainings to be long lasting, the participants have to learn to hold themselves accountable when there is no trainer. During all the days that teachers and staff are on their own with students, they shouldn’t be afraid to have tough conversations and make bold decisions. Dr. Eakins followed with, “I'm not going to change your life within an hour, 90 minutes, two hours, three hours..That's work that you have to do on your own. They need to see that comes from leadership as well.” In order to be successful in leading for justice, it takes changing your mind, admitting your previous understanding of issues like racism and inequality were too narrow, or recognizing that you have privilege. Mindset work is not easy, but it’s the only way forward. We could all be more self aware of our behaviors and take the time to analyze why we think the way we do. Dr. Eakins emphasizes how moving school to online doesn’t change the equity issues that were already there before. Countless times, he’s heard the same thing: “I don’t need this because I make sure all students are treated the same or equally.” That explanation in itself shows that they are more focused on equality and not equity. Another misconception that comes up is that white teachers don’t think that it’s their problem. They think whatever affects Black, Latinx, or Indigenous people should be handled or discussed by that group. Dr. Eakins shared one example of when this came up with a teacher. He said, “I remember having a conversation with a teacher. That was teaching their students about blackface and there was like one student black student in the class. And the teacher pointed at the student and said well your people find this offensive. And I said well, as a teacher, I would think you would find it offensive as well. Like, this is not Black people’s problem. We're not putting paint on our face to look dark skinned, like, these are things that white people are doing. So I would hope that you would be offended that some of your peers might be doing these things, or have done these things in the past, as opposed to passing this off as “this is someone else’s issue."” It is challenging but necessary work to critically self-reflect. It is challenging but necessary work to lead change in our schools and teach for justice and equity. Teachers and leaders who are "willing to put their jobs on the line" as Dr. Eakins says, are needed to bring about change in our schools and communities! Let's challenge each other to name injustices, take bold action, engage in challenging conversations, and question traditional ways of "doing school" so that we can all have a brighter tomorrow. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
Intro to Media Critique As a former high school, and current college professor, teaching feminism and media literacy, one of my favorite projects has always been a feminist media critique. Students have consistently cited this project as one of their favorite parts of class, and I like it because it gives students an authentic opportunity to think critically—using an intersectional feminist lens—about the media they are consuming. I backwards plan my curriculum, so I will explain the goal of the unit first. Students choose a piece of media (i.e., film, song, ad campaign) that features a person, organization, genre of music/film, etc. you like and answer this question: Does this piece of media (re)produce or interrupt oppression? To support diverse preferences for expression and varied skill sets, this year, I plan to invite students to submit their responses as one of the following formats:
In addition to the overarching question, I ask students to share the piece of media they are analyzing as an image, link, or video clip. I also remind students that a high quality analysis does not require an extensive summary of the piece of media. I ask students to include thoughtful connections to at least two relevant class texts (e.g., readings, podcast episodes, films, class slides). I also ask students to speak to the specific identities portrayed in the piece (e.g., genders, races, sexualities) as well as the relevant context(s) (e.g., historical, sociopolitical, economic) related to the piece. To support students, I ask scaffolding questions such as: Does the piece reinforce or challenge stereotypical depictions of individuals and groups? Does it recognize and address sociopolitical issues and contexts or does it avoid or gloss over important issues and contexts? A note on how this project has changed: Historically, I didn’t have one succinct question that framed this project. Instead, I used all of the scaffolding questions listed above. While these questions are helpful, they are best used as supports to break down the larger question into concrete bites. The project needs a clear and compelling driving question that’s exciting to answer and allows students to take a clear position: It (re)produces oppression; It interrupts oppression; or perhaps, It’s complicated. Grading Criteria Before students begin working on the project, I tell students how the project will be graded. I use a mastery-based grading system, which specifies the outcomes in which students will need to demonstrate mastery. A student’s grade will indicate that they are meeting the standard, have gone above the standard, or are still approaching the standard (and will have an opportunity to revise the project after receiving feedback on specific areas for improvement). I group my course outcomes into three categories, aligned to three of Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s four literacy pursuits. Criticality. These outcomes seek to develop students’ understanding of power, oppression and justice. My specific course outcomes are: I can recognize the ways in which gender and race are socially constructed; I can recognize and describe the structural causes of injustice experienced by members of various identity groups; and I can ask “What about women” and also “Which women?” when analyzing false universals (assuming a single identity/story/ experience). Intellect. Outcomes in this category build students’ ability to apply what they have learned. My specific outcome for this project is: I can apply a feminist lens to a conversation, text, event, or issue. Skills. In this course, discourse is an important skill. My discourse outcome is: In written and verbal discussions, I can engage with curiosity, own the impact of my words, pause before responding, treat others with dignity, and hold myself and others accountable. While students do not demonstrate this skill within their independent project, once finished, they share their completed projects on a class discussion board. To prepare students to engage deeply with this project, I assign the following “texts” for students to read, listen to, or view independently:
During class lessons, I introduce Martha Nussbaum’s types of objectification and Layla Saad’s aspects of white supremacy (from her book, Me and White Supremacy). Following the introduction of theory, students have a chance to practice analyzing ads and other pieces of media in small groups prior to undertaking the independent media critique project. For practice, I have used images such as Post-It’s “for the little things you’ll forget” ad and Nando’s chicken ad as well as video clips such as Kylie Jenner’s Pepsi ad and Johnny Depp’s Sauvage Dior ad. I also share professional examples of media critiques with students so they can see what a high quality feminist critique looks like. I have shared this one from Anita Sarkesian on gendered tropes in video games, this one on one of the latest Star Wars films, and this one on Cardi B and Meghan Thee Stallion’s song, “WAP.” Over the years, my students have analyzed many songs from Beyonce (e.g., “If I were a girl” and “Pretty Hurts”), Maddie & Tae’s “Girl in a Country song,” advertisements from Old Spice to Hardy’s, television shows like AJ and the Queen and Good Trouble, and news coverage of police shootings. Perhaps the best evidence of this project’s success is the positive feedback I receive from students after completing the unit. Here’s one: “I learned in the semester, about a whole new way of thinking. I never really thought of these kinds of things before this class. Now I put a whole new lens on how I think.” That’s the power of an authentic, justice-based assessment. If you’re interested in creating your own feminist media critique unit, you can use my free Backwards Planning Template to get started. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
Make Time for Current Events I regularly talk about the purpose of creating a justice-centered curriculum that talks about current events but today I am going to explain how that’s done. For a quick refresh, this is important because what happens in the world largely impacts our students’ understanding and problem solving. Having discussions about recent issues also connects students to larger themes throughout history. Furthermore, many of these occurrences are likely already affecting students who identify with groups that are continuously targeted based on race, class, gender, and other parts of their identities. Now that we’ve covered that, here are the steps you need to make this work for your units. Step 1: Pick a protocol for discussing current events with your students The goal is for students to be able to process their thoughts and emotions about the event through discussion. You may find it helpful to start with providing a piece of content about the event. Students would be able to read/listen and then engage with the information by annotating or journaling. Then when it comes time to connect as a group, I recommend either a verbal or written protocol where students are speaking with each other about the event or perhaps writing down thoughts in a virtual chat setting. “My favorite has always been circle protocol: a conversation where every student has the opportunity to weigh in and just share something in response to the current event or the topic at hand.” I’ve seen some teachers use additional student centered protocols as well. Student presentations are a great example of that. Step 2: Build the protocol into your flexible unit arc A unit arc is the progression of lesson activities that occur over the course of a unit. There’s a “hook” you want to have at the start of this arc. Your hook can be introducing the event to the class. Then on a different day, you could naturally have that discussion built into the unit. This means you won’t have to put your schedule of lessons on pause like you would without that flexibility. Rethink how you can deliver the objectives without pulling everything out of a textbook. When you switch from memorization of pre-made curriculum to a 4 unit model that’s project-based and centered in current justice events, the outcomes are phenomenal! For one, it enables more deep diving into a specific topic rather than just skimming the surface. Secondly, it will strengthen engagement because students are naturally more focused on what’s happening now in their lives. So leaning into that means you’re now able to go with the tide of attention instead of against it. Step 3: Let Students Lead Now that you’ve figured out how you want to set it up, you can give students the opportunity to lead discussions, choose the current event, and pick the media that they will interact with in the first stage. It’s so fun to see how much variety there is when everyone gets to bring in something they thought of themselves. If you would like some more ideas, the template that I’m sharing with you today is specifically made for student-led discussions around a current event so be sure to check that out! Step 4: Connect the Curriculum to Justice It takes work to relearn your curriculum design because traditional methods do not incorporate enough social justice. But it is so much easier than you think, you just have to be willing. So let’s make a goal right now: In every unit, I will teach for justice. This Is a Major Benefit of Planning Your Own Units When I say that this model gives you room for current topics, I mean it. In one of my classes, current event circles made up 25% of class time each week. I had the freedom to plan on the spot for things that came up. This might not sound like an easy thing at the moment because many teachers haven’t had the PD or clear administrator support to make their planning more flexible. Something that’s really given me more time to be present during class discussions is giving students more opportunities to handle things like outlining the discussion and filling in as moderators. It was powerful to see them facilitate these parts of class and practice those leadership skills. “We’re all sitting in this conversation together and we all get to see each other in these different lights of stepping up to lead or stepping back to be a participant.” Now that you’ve learned the four step process to creating more flexible curriculum with current events, click the link below to access the Circle Planning Template that you can give to your students for holding important conversations in the classroom. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
Boston-based musician, educator, and arts advocate, Christopher Schroeder is a catalyst for social change through music and arts education. With nearly 15 years of arts leadership and teaching experience, he has successfully established programs and influenced music ecosystems within the Boston community and throughout the United States. Schroeder currently serves as the Executive Director of the Boston Music Project, Module Director for the Global Leaders Program and is a guest conductor and education clinician with Conn Selmer, Inc. Most recently, he was recognized as a Boston Future Leader by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and a quarter-finalist for the 2019 Grammy Music Educator Award. The Power of Music Music is a great way to unlock students’ creativity but did you know that it can be utilized for social justice and activism? There’s been surprising scientific research done that reveals students who play and listen to music reflect not just more self confidence and creative energy, but also higher drives to change the status quo. The exercises that Chris teaches in his music classes are aimed at deepening students' sense of identity. “The work that we do at the Boston Music Project is centered around ensemble-based learning, social emotional learning, civic action, and creative self expression.” The idea that inspired one of their main projects was what if we could use our knowledge of music to communicate messages about social justice. What if our music could inspire people to take action? So that’s exactly what Chris and his music group set out to do. One of their pieces was heard by families of victims from school shootings. This type of musical activism gives children a chance to build and expand their own identities. But then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and he was presented with a new challenge—how do they keep the mission going? He started small, asking students questions to generate more conversations that could keep engagement circulating even while everyone was stuck at home. Then, the music advisors in the project started leading sub groups of the class to foster closer communities. The secret ingredient was incorporating poetry into the work. Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” became a valuable resource for creating their next music project. He shares, “We established a pulse that was associated with the mood. And then we started to get into the text. Which lines of text connected with a child more than another?” Embed Social Emotional Learning Over time, they created a digital music production that was able to flourish with support from teaching artists from the Boston Music Project. Chris shares that he made sure the routines that were done in person stayed the same during virtual class time to help students make a smoother transition. The students had the same clear expectations, mindfulness practices, warm ups, etc. He recommends that students should be given more opportunities to voice their ideas. If they have more control over their projects, they are much more likely to want to stay involved. In addition, SEL plays a big role in these processes. The Boston Music Project hires SEL specialists to help translate concepts and inform their practice realizing how social emotional learning drives self-awareness, awareness of others, and responsible decision making. I hope this talk has inspired you to think outside the box with your teaching methods and social justice based learning. If you want to connect with Christopher, you can find him on the Boston Music Project Website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and email. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
Today is the last installment of the Planning Series! Over the past few weeks, I hope that you’ve not only picked up on some great planning strategies, but have renewed your mindset by throwing out those old limiting beliefs so that you can show up as an empowered leader in your school community. First, a necessary mindset shift From personal experience, I know the following to be true: “Covering” content lowers engagement and achievement. And I believe the quickest way to drive up student engagement and build students’ skills is to stop trying to cover the traditional curriculum map and, instead, create 4 justice-centered units. Student engagement is way more likely to come from creating lessons that have students explore their skills, make mistakes, revise their work, learn from feedback, collaborate, and learn deeply. The mindset shift we need to make is to have a goal that is more than “fit it all in”. How about we instead find what really motivates students to explore what they're interested in? So before doing anything else, the most important shift is to move your lesson plan goal from “covering content” to developing independent learners. I found when I used terms like “cover content” and “get through,” the students weren’t retaining what I wanted them to anyways. It was better to focus on doing less, but make sure students were actually learning it. The things that may have been important to teach 50 years ago are Google-able now. Therefore, it’s more important students are able to find, analyze, and apply new information than memorize a predetermined list of facts. “Once I made that mindset shift, that was a huge shift in advancing my student’s learning and definitely an increase in their engagement.” Cut down on time If you find yourself spending hours making mini lessons, you might ask yourself: How could I teach the same content and have the students practice a different skill than listening and note-taking? For example, when I prepped for lectures, I would read through a textbook, make a slide deck, and create a guided worksheet. This took about 4 hours per lesson. But if you want to make this lesson more student-centered then you need to find a text(s), generate 1-2 big questions to answer, and choose a text-based protocol from my resource bank. This process only takes about 30 minutes which saves you 3 and a half hours compared to the original method! If you stay dedicated to student-centered learning, planning will be easier, and your students will develop great text analysis skills. If you feel like your lesson plans need to be formal or by the book, you might be spending too much time on the surface when you need to dig down to the root of your curriculum, the purpose of it. We want to plan from the lens of hitting the broader course goals. To me, an effective lesson plan is one that works for you. It’s an outline of your ideas and a check for alignment with your larger unit or course goals. It is the basis from which your lesson materials emerge. A more streamlined lesson plan You get to put your own spin on it, but here are the core elements of a lesson that I think serve the needs of both teachers and administrators: The End Goal Know exactly what students need to do for your summative assessment at the end of the unit. What are you working towards? Lesson Focus Narrow it down to ONE thing you want students to walk away knowing or being able to do. Students who are able to focus on 1 or 2 topics are going to learn more deeply than trying to get them to take on several skills. If the goal is to help them master and retain the knowledge, then giving them too many things will work against this goal. Phase of Learning Make sure there’s at least one lesson per phase for each unit. Consider whether students’ students are new to this skill or have been previously introduced. If they have been previously introduced, there are multiple ways you can have them practice or expand so that they feel they are really advancing in this area. These guidelines will help keep your expectations for student performance in line with the amount of time students have had to work on a skill. There’s a tendency to provide less time than is needed for students to really master a skill, and cite a need to “cover content” as our rationale. Don’t have time? Focus on fewer skills and content. Depth over breadth! Lesson Flow [The Activities] These are your core protocols for the lesson. Stick with one main activity for student work time. Then, you can add in a hook and assessment activity to bookend the main activity. Within this section of the plan, you may want to note 1-2 key questions that students are answering during each protocol. For example, how much time do you think each activity will take, and what resources are needed? If you like to lecture, you may want to decrease your talk time so that students can have more time to do independent work where they can apply what they’ve learned. I have found that trying to limit my number of slides helps me narrow my focus to one core concept—try using 10 slides per mini lesson with a maximum teacher talk time of 15 minutes. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but pick numbers that work for you and stretch yourself to streamline your mini lessons. Certainly, there are more things that could go into your lesson plan, but odds are, you’re probably already thinking about those things as you plan. If not, add them to your lesson plan, but only write down what you need to organize your ideas and ensure this lesson gets students where they need to go. To help you write a lesson plan with just the essential elements, I’ve made you a template called the Streamlined Lesson Planning Template. Thanks for following along with this series. Please share some of your highlights from this episode and the past episodes or something you were excited to learn. And if you want me to take you on an in-depth walkthrough of how I saved 700 hours of planning time in one year as a teacher, my self paced online course, Work Less Teach More, is now open for enrollment. The course is $197. What's your professional and mental wellbeing worth to you? For me, my wellbeing is worth way more than $200. Enroll in the self-paced online course today at bit.ly/wltmcourse If you’re a school leader wanting to help your teachers free up the time and energy to tackle big transformative things, you can purchase this course for your teachers as a pilot for one department or grade team or for the whole school. Want to chat to see if the course would be a good fit? Connect with me at hello@lindsaybethlyons.com
Why is wellness something we should dig deeper into? Well-being is critically important for school culture and student success. Researchers found that employee health directly impacts the success of organizational success. The second reason is that a principal’s sense of well-being is related to the well-being of students and teachers. Similarly, educators report that they flourish when their students flourish. So many schools have high turnover rates and are feeling the time crunch to improve scores quickly. Schools that are flourishing are doing these five things: 1. Filling the culture with trust, hope, compassion, and purpose 2. Engaging in their work and connecting purpose to it 3. Having a shared leadership mindset 4. Adapting to any situation and 5. Prioritizing their well-being. How wellness contributes to high performance The well-being of an entire organization can only come from the bottom up. So an individual stakeholder’s well-being is an essential part of the process. Schools that are performing at an amazing level are:
All of the work that school leaders put into their own growth and helping others around them can have a profound ripple effect on the school as a whole. That’s why it’s important to also support the well-being of those around you. Make sure your organizational environment is reinforcing healthy behaviors (not as an add-on, but as part of the fabric of how you do things). Foster well-being through positive interpersonal communication.These teachers and leaders are not afraid to have difficult conversations and speak up for social justice. So lean into your own values, because they will get you far. You have a choice as a school leader, you can choose to promote well-being, or you can choose to harm well-being and perpetuate oppression. The reality is that many schools today are facing high turnover rates. The turnover rate in the nation’s K–12 schools is an increasingly acknowledged but still poorly understood crisis. Teachers are feeling more crunched for time. There is high demand to get students to retain their information and perform well on standardized tests. There’s too much focus on making sure the public data looks right. Teachers can definitely get stressed out by following this model too closely. We know that teacher stress has a big effect on student’s performance and well-being. So there is good reason to turn to wellness. If schools instead put more energy into cultivating wellness in teachers, there is more potential for them to feel supported and meaningful in their work. Types of Wellness The National Wellness Institute breaks down wellness into 6 dimensions. Those are:
Here’s what they say about wellness: “it is an active process through which people become aware of and make choices toward a more successful existence.” It is simply making choices consistently towards a healthy and fulfilling life. It’s important to remember that a single habit like exercise, only fulfills one or a few dimensions of wellbeing. So the key is to think about how you can achieve wellness in each area. For example, to work on my emotional well-being, I check in with how I’m feeling in my body. I lower my shoulders and try to connect to emotions that are coming up. These could look completely different for you. You could hit multiple pieces of wellness by engaging in movement and socializing at the same time. You could connect spiritual to emotional with deep reflection and writing. Or perhaps think of something you’ve done an incredible job with this week to really fuel yourself up. Once you’ve thought about what types you want to hit, set a monthly wellness goal with three concrete actions that are listed underneath it. After that, how will you plan to track that progress? If you don’t have something set up, feel free to use my wellness tracker below! Think about how you can fulfill each month’s goal. There are plenty of opportunities to merge one well-being with another type so that you don’t have to spend more time than you have trying to hit all of them. Let it come naturally and in all the ways that bring you happiness or peace. This entire planning series was made to help you reconnect to wellness and plan ahead for more satisfaction and growth. Make wellness the priority more consistently and you’ll be so excited with the results you get. Be sure to come back for the last part of the planning series next week! And if you want me to take you on an in-depth walkthrough of how I saved 700 hours of planning time in one year as a teacher, my self paced online course, Work Less Teach More, is now open for enrollment. The course is $197 and I don’t know about you, but my professional and mental wellbeing is worth way more to me than $200. You can enroll today at bit.ly/wltmcourse If you’re a school leader wanting to help your teachers free up the time and energy to tackle big transformative things, you can purchase this course for your teachers as a pilot for one department or grade team or for the whole school. Want to chat to see if the course would be a good fit? Connect with me at hello@lindsaybethlyons.com
A clear mind can provide you with so many great benefits. Two big ones that we would all love to have are more energy and more creativity. We want to have a mind that’s not so cluttered with all the crazy to-do lists and worries, but how do we achieve this when there’s so much to think about? Let’s take the same approach as schools who have a 4 day school week or those entrepreneurs that inspire us with their 4 day work week. First you need to figure out what is essential in your work and your goals. Greg McKeown’s podcast episode 23 talks about the magic of a 4 Day Workweek using essentialism. Essentialism is the view that certain properties of things are an essential part of that thing’s identity and function. “By having a culture focused on essentialism, it actually democratizes the workplace.” Ask: What’s essential? Make sure your school leaders are on board with helping you increase your productivity and reduce stress. So the next time your boss asks you to stop what you’re doing for another task, you can ask whether it’s more important than the project you’re trying to get done. This can change the culture and help everyone realize what’s really moving the needle forward. I coached a leader last year who did an exercise with her team to determine what tasks are in alignment with their goals. All it requires is writing on some post-its or a padlet of all things you are doing. Once you’ve done that, categorize what is essential and in line with your purpose and categorize what can be taken off the plate. If it’s something you still want to get done you can move the task to someone else or automate it. Team brainstorming will still have a time and place for you and your team. Just be thoughtful about when that’s most helpful vs. just meeting to meet. A Productivity System David’s Allen’s Getting Things Done approach involves having a place that each idea is documented. To figure out how to document these, he tells us to ask: Is it actionable? If it's not actionable, it goes into a long-term list we look at less frequently. If it is actionable in 2 minutes, do it now. If it will take longer, you can delegate it or defer it (on a next action list or—my favorite—on your calendar. Multi-step actions go in a projects list. “You need no new skills to increase your productivity and reduce your stress—just an enhanced set of systemic behaviors with which to apply them.” - David Allen Here’s my approach:
-Reference - appropriately categorized Doc in relevant folder If your tasks will take less than two minutes, then do it now. But for everything else that takes longer, you can either delegate it or put it into a system that you will come back to next week. It’s good to put those deferred things on the calendar because otherwise, you’re not going to have it fitted into your day like everything else on the calendar. These are all going to contribute to a mind that is more clear. When you have things on your mind, get it onto paper or into your files so that it has a place to go besides taking up valuable space in your brain. David Allen, the creator of Getting Things Done says that 80% of the things you keep thinking of can be resolved with just listing an outcome and next action while the other 15% will require a little brainstorming first. Only the last 5% will take longer project planning steps. This practice is called distributed cognition and it will help you cultivate more creativity overall. To help you get your energy and creativity back in hand, I’m sharing the Productive Planning Template as this week’s freebie. Next week we will talk about advancing wellness in part 5 of the planning series. Also, if you want me to take you on an in-depth walkthrough of how I saved 700 hours of planning time in one year as a teacher, my self paced online course, Work Less Teach More, is now open for enrollment. The course is $197 and I don’t know about you, but my professional and mental wellbeing is worth way more to me than $200. You can enroll today at bit.ly/wltmcourse If you’re a school leader wanting to help your teachers free up the time and energy to tackle big transformative things, you can purchase this course for your teachers as a pilot for one department or grade team or for the whole school. Want to chat to see if the course would be a good fit? Connect with me at hello@lindsaybethlyons.com
Have you ever told yourself that there isn’t enough time to get to professional development or create original curriculum? You imagine that your students will suffer if you don’t spend more than 2 hours grading and planning lessons. But here’s the thing: you have the time, you just don’t believe in using it for the possibilities. This is something I still struggle with too. There’s that tunnel vision telling you to focus on the concrete—on whatever’s in front of you demanding attention. Excuses keep you stuck I’ll share the 2 most common responses I hear from teachers when presented with a PD opportunity. Here’s one: The “I can’t take time from grading/lesson planning” response. So, how can we reframe that initial response? Try asking yourself these reframing questions: What if the professional development I spend time on teaches me how to plan efficiently and grade faster and it actually saves me time in the long run? What if it helps me build engaging learning activities so that students are on-task and excited to learn every day? What if it means I would be able to stop taking work home—the planning/grading work and the mental stress? Here’s another one: The “I can’t miss class for PD” response. When teachers are offered a chance to attend a school-day PD (like visiting another school or a curriculum planning day or a workshop off-site), I often hear teachers say: I can’t leave my kids; they’ll miss out on a day of learning. How might we reframe this? Try asking yourself these reframing questions: Would I sacrifice one day of student learning and the time it takes to prep sub plans (which is often harder than prepping your own lessons) if it meant me and my students would be energized and engaged for the rest of the year? What if it just increased engagement for a semester? One unit? What if the thing I could accomplish by missing ONE day of class could drastically improve student engagement and achievement? My biggest growth spurts as a teacher came from taking the time to learn a new approach and try it out. “Don’t underestimate the power of investing in your learning, even if (or maybe especially if) it seems like your time or energy is stretched too thin to take on one more thing!” In general, we only have so many hours in a day, so it really comes down to spending our time in ways that get us the big results and the life we ultimately want. Another belief that might be holding you back is thinking that you owe your time to other people. Remember, there is always an opportunity cost to saying, “Yes.” You need to determine if the cost is worth it. For example, if I agree to stay after school, I won’t be able to run today or cook dinner with my family or fill-in-the-blank-here. Am I willing to sacrifice that? Learn to say “No” so that you can say “Yes” to something else. That something else may be spending time with family, exercising, sleeping, whatever it is, your “No”s make room for “Yes”es in the areas that matter most to you. David Bayer talks about the limiting beliefs we hold put us in a state of inner conflict, which steals our time, energy, & presence. We can lose hours of time each day here, years of our life! We’ll talk more in the next episode about clearing the mind to create more energy and creativity. Determine Your 3 Priorities Take a moment to brainstorm and list your top 3 priorities. What do you want to spend more time doing? This list will help you say “No.” You can use the list as a litmus test by asking yourself if saying ”Yes” to something will take too much away from your priorities. Consider how your list of priorities can help you actually say, “No” to something. Write your script! I’ve heard different iterations of the following script: Thank you for asking. I’m excited about what you’re doing. My current priorities are: ____, ____, and ____. I’m unable to say yes to anything outside of these right now. Most people are not going to feel rejected by this kind of answer. In fact, most people I’ve heard share their feelings of this experience say they felt inspired. I should note, you can suggest a way to integrate one of your priority areas with the ask if it’s possible. Here’s an example: If you want to join me on my afternoon run/walk, then I would be able to have that meeting. Alternatively, you could say “No” as a full sentence. Count to 10 in your head afterwards to fill the awkward silence if it bothers you. In Emilie Aries’ book, Bossed Up, she notes a moment when Anderson Cooper asked Hillary Clinton if she wanted to respond to a comment, and she simply replied, “No.” Complete sentence. Boom. We don’t always need to explain ourselves! As we begin doing this work for ourselves, we’ll also be modeling for those around us, this is a great additional benefit! By doing this for YOU, you can transform your workplace culture. Transform your limiting beliefs David Bayer suggests rewriting a limiting belief (e.g., “I can’t say no to people”) as an empowering belief, and checking our thinking and decision-making against that belief. What are the beliefs getting in the way of you living the life you want to live? How can we take action on the beliefs that limit us? Take a moment to rewrite your limiting belief to an empowering one or list out the top 3 priorities in your life right now and use this list to make decisions for the rest of the month. To help you, I’m sharing some Boundary Reminder Images as this week’s freebie. You can print or save on your phone or computer to remind you of living into your values. (bit.ly/boundaryreminders). Next week we will examine the topic of clearing the mind. Also, if you want me to take you on an in-depth walkthrough of how I saved 700 hours of planning time in one year as a teacher, my self paced online course, Work Less Teach More, is now open for enrollment. The course is $197 and I don’t know about you, but my professional and mental wellbeing is worth way more to me than $200. You can enroll today at bit.ly/wltmcourse If you’re a school leader wanting to help your teachers free up the time and energy to tackle big transformative things, you can purchase this course for your teachers as a pilot for one department or grade team or for the whole school. Want to chat to see if the course would be a good fit? Connect with me at hello@lindsaybethlyons.com
Welcome back to Planning Series part 2. When getting started with behavior change, many have said to start with one change or one step. It’s what you may gravitate towards because one sounds easy enough. But here’s why I’m recommending you take three steps instead: when you take just one step, your motivation and enthusiastic energy to get to your goal is more likely to fizzle out. If you commit to three steps, you can keep up the momentum and give yourself a better chance of making some changes. So when it comes to creating these three habits, here are some guidelines you should follow:
Set a Deadline One week is generally enough time to get your three steps completed without feeling pinched for time. For example, you decide to have a 30 minute reflection time with a journal for one of your steps. On Monday you have such a busy day and realize you won’t be able to get to it, but because you stayed flexible with the deadline, you know you can still get it done the next day. Whatever you choose as your deadline, make sure it is soon enough that you won’t put it off until “tomorrow,” which in my experience quickly becomes much later. Make the Action Doable When thinking about your steps, make sure you feel like each is something that feels manageable within your day, week, etc. You don’t want to commit hours of your time to learning or doing something if you still have errands to run, dinner to cook, and other things that you need to get done still. Aim for actions that will take 2 to 5 minutes. For example, if my desired habit is to practice on Duolingo every day, I can complete a lesson in two minutes and still continue my daily streak of practice. This will help prevent you from staying up later or getting overwhelmed. Write Out Your Plan I used to write down two big things I wanted to accomplish each day and focus on completing those tasks. Now, it feels more powerful to tie each of those tasks to a larger goal. Pinpoint the big overarching vision you have in mind today and ask yourself what tasks are directly contributing to that? Connect to your purpose! Connect These Steps to Your Identity James Clear talks about linking our habits to our identities as a way to ensure we follow through on our goals. He talks about conducting a yearly “Integrity Report” in which he asks: What are the core values that drive my life and work? How am I living and working with integrity right now? How can I set a higher standard in the future? He says this work helps “revisit my desired identity and consider how my habits are helping me become the type of person I wish to be.” Think about your own core values. How will your steps connect back to who you want to be? Day to Day Work/Scheduling Tips Wondering how to manage your to do list when it keeps growing? Here are some tips:
Boundaries Working from home is tough because it’s easier than usual to just keep working. You never leave your place of work! (If you can, designate a space just for work or put your work-related papers out of sight at the end of the day.) Scheduling-wise, try to limit yourself to 40 hours a week. That means 8 hour work days and no-work weekends. I know this is hard—I’ve launched an entire course around this premise, but the goal here is to set boundaries, so choose boundaries that work for you. Energy efficiency For me, aligning my day with my energy means tackling creation-based tasks in the morning when my energy is fresh, and saving my meetings and menial tasks, like email, for the afternoon. Your energy may be the opposite, so you may want to make time for lesson or activity creation towards the end of the day. We’re all used to a school day that starts early in the morning, but if you don’t have live classes to host or meetings to attend at that time, start your work day later if you’re more productive later in the day! Batch your work Batching your work is productivity gold. My preference is 4-hour chunks of time, but that may not be realistic if you have scheduled times you need to host a live class or staff meetings to work around. I recommend spending at least one concentrated hour on a task (aside from something like email or short “check the box” kinds of To Dos). Batching is great because once you get in the zone, you are far more efficient than when you first start a task. We often restart when we’re interrupted (by ourselves or someone else) to do an unrelated task. “I like creating in the morning. When I was teaching full time, I liked having back to back prep and lunch time because I was often able to finish what I started working on instead of wasting 10-15 minutes later on to remember where I left off and what I was doing.” Remember to get breaks in During your breaks make sure you get up and move. Emilie Aries, the host of the Bossed Up podcast, did an episode on Zoom fatigue in which she shares the expert recommendation for breaks is 10-15 minutes of break time for every 2 hours of work. I’ve been scheduling at least one mid-day walk break for myself to make sure I get up and move around and get out of work mode. To be transparent, this is still a struggle for me. I often listen to educational podcasts during this time so I’m still doing research for work, but this is how I convince myself to take the break! Keep calm and add to calendar Here’s what you can do to keep the to do list small and complete everything on it: put it on the calendar! There may be big goals for each day, but the specific tasks you need to accomplish can go in as events on your calendar. First, estimate the amount of time it will take to complete the task. Once the day’s filled up you can add any remaining tasks to the next day. If something comes up that absolutely has to be done today, move the tasks that got ousted to open slots later in the week. This practice will allow you to get things done without deleting anything or extending the work day. Our freebie for the week is a Scheduling Template (bit.ly/workfromhomeschedule) that you can use to write down your steps. Stay tuned for the next part of this series! These were just a fraction of the time-saving techniques I teach in my online course Work Less, Teach More. The course is $197 and I don’t know about you, but my professional and mental wellbeing is worth way more to me than $200. If you want to learn the same strategies that saved me 700 hours in a single year as a teacher, you can register for the course today at bit.ly/wltmcourse. If you’re a school leader wanting to help your teachers free up the time and energy to tackle big transformative things, you can purchase this course for your teachers as a pilot for one department or grade team or for the whole school. Want to chat to see if the course would be a good fit? Connect with me at hello@lindsaybethlyons.com
What does it mean to be strategic with your time? Strategic is the word of the year for Lindsay and today she’s reporting on all the benefits of tracking your planning so you can shift your planning practice. How much of your work is generating your results? How you choose to spend your planning time as a teacher is crucial because it determines how much time you’ll devote to each piece of your planning. And since time is already so precious, we have to have a strategic approach to planning that gets you results with less paperwork, researching, etc. In order to be more efficient with it, you need to first know how much time you’re currently spending on each activity. The 80/20 principle says that 80% of your outcomes are from only 20% of your work. So that means that certain things you’re doing are driving the majority of your results and that the rest is really something that should be reassessed and perhaps cut down on in order to save you more time for what’s working. The 50/40/10 Strategy The strategy that Lindsay started using is based off of her resource the 50/40/10 Planning Bundle. This bundle is composed of eight pages of documents of synthesized research with a step by step checklist along with planning templates that you can fill out in a variety of ways. This strategy asks you to first identify the “buckets” or categories that your tasks align with. These are those high leverage activities but can also include those that are low leverage as an "other" category. Then you split your time into specific ratios and allocate certain activities to those ratios. The most ideal ratios that Lindsay found after research and experimenting is 50% for planning, 40% for professional development, and 10% on student feedback. These percentages can be played with to find what works best for you. But these ratios are shown to increase the quality of teacher instruction and raising quality instruction means that student achievement levels start to go up as well. “This is all about really removing the unnecessary things that don't produce as big results as we could be producing in order to get to a place where we're really thinking strategically and making those big powerful high leverage shifts.” So 50% percent of planning can look like designing the content, researching, gathering resources, and writing out the lesson plan. The reason that 40% goes towards personal development is because the research shows how closely connected student success is with you, as an instructor, developing your capabilities and skills. If you want to go beyond staff meetings, you can also consider attending a colleague’s class (even on zoom) or listening to a relevant podcast as a method of personal and professional development. And then that last 10% is focusing on providing students qualitative responses to their assignments rather than a simple grade. If you aim to give the majority of feedback during class time then you won’t need very much time for this outside of class. Lindsay says that before using this strategy she was spending so much time outside of class on planning with no room for professional development and it wasn’t getting the results she wanted. “I could see that it wasn't producing results. And so when I shifted over time and experimented pretty boldly, actually, with different approaches to planning, and tinkered with that formula, it ended up saving me about 700 hours per school year, which is monumental! So it reduced my time spent planning outside of school to just zero to two hours a week, which is a world of difference.” Identify what is needed and get rid of what isn't To get the same benefits, you should first take one week to track what you’re doing. Time yourself for every activity you do during planning time. Next, categorize these activities into three to four themes. After that, take a look and find the thing that’s using up the most time inefficiently. Make a plan for how you can either outsource that work or automate it. Once you’ve done all that you can set a weekly time limit for each bucket activity and use that new space for your goals and opportunities for professional development. You may find that it’s tough to stick to this the first week. But don’t think of it as “I don’t have enough time to finish this.” Be determined and use creativity. Think of some low-prep strategies that deliver high impacts. Also use the 50/40/10 Planning Bundle as a helpful resource that divides your percentages into your three buckets, makes suggestions, and reminds you of your goals and your big thinking for the semester. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Lindsay can be found on LinkedIn and Instagram. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
Leah Urzua is the founder and CEO of Results by Riviera which is an online business that serves other service-based entrepreneurs who are looking to streamline their business so they can leave their stress behind and work within their passion. She specializes in systems and overall business management. In addition, she’s a racial justice advocate and activist who is eager to dismantle systemic racism and white supremacy in today’s society. The problem with the way we run our businesses today Many entrepreneurs and CEOs tend to treat their business like a completely separate world from politics, social justice, and everything that triggers strong feelings. But just as a school is a small representation of what goes on in the rest of society, so is the workplace. It’s time we take a closer look at just how connected business is to the systems of racism. The way capitalism was built was to lift up anyone with white skin while forcing the Black diaspora to be the ones who labor to keep it running. So think of it as a large gap that started during the era of slavery and never really closed since. So now we have normalized white businesses as being the go-to. We seek out white coaches and hire white candidates. We collaborate with other white entrepreneurs. The list goes on and on. When you’re searching for new business accounts to follow and connect with on social media, have you ever looked at an Black owned business account who shows up with expertise on social media and then ended up following a white owned business account with more followers and pretty branding? You’re not the only one who has experienced those feelings of internal bias. They are more a part of our decision making process than we care to admit. But continuing to give in to these biases is what perpetuates the inequality and racism that affects Black and Brown entrepreneurs. Leah tells us if you want to start being a better, more equitable leader in your business, it’s time to make yourself aware of the privileges you hold and be more mindful of what you can do to be a more justice-centered business and human. “[My] dream is to have a marketplace that's liberated from oppression and inequality and racism. And ideally, that would be, because all businesses and corporations are collectively deciding to do the work—to take action.” Things to pay close attention to:
Creating an anti-racist business These are just some of the ways to hold yourself accountable. The hardest part of ending racism will be changing our world on an individual level. We have to be able to all take responsibility whether you're in education, business, or any other constructed institutions. Consider how it affects the people of color who follow you and buy from you when violence and oppression hits their communities and they hear no one talk about it. Being silent or neutral is never the right answer. You can do a lot of good by staying up to date on what’s happening in the real world and make an effort to be supportive to those who might be affected by systemic racism. Leah shares how much she strives to integrate more justice in her own business. She says, “I said in the beginning that I work with systems and usually, my job entails building and implementing systems. But if there's one system that I really want to be known for working against, in my business and my life, it's systemic racism and oppression.” Some of the things that Leah does to make this a reality is that she makes sure she is very clear about what her values are, she openly talks about injustices and demands action. In addition, she amplifies Black and Brown voices as well as learns from women of color who teach people how to make change. To get started on your own journey with intersecting racial justice and your business, Leah created a resource made called “Strategies for Justice” that you can access at the link below. As a final note, this is possible for everyone no matter what type of business or field of work you're in. I hope you feel inspired to take more action for justice in your own career and business. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Leah can be found on her website, Instagram, Facebook, and Email. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
Lindsay considers the moments leading up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol and what she decided to talk about with her white teachers teaching mostly white students after realizing it was an important learning opportunity. What happened that day On Wednesday, January 6, 2021, the United States experienced a domestic terrorist attack on its government for the first time in history. An angry mob composed of thousands of white supremacists stormed up the U.S. Capitol and passed Capitol police officers with ease. A dozen of the men from the mob made it into the building These rioters occupied, vandalized, and looted parts of the building for several hours. The events of this day led to much damage, disorder, and stress about how to handle the situation and all those responsible. In the weeks leading up to the attack, there were multiple social media groups and far right organizations that discussed plans to occupy the Capitol after a tweet by President Trump urged his supporters to gather on the 6th for a rally and protest. On the morning of January 6th, Trump provoked everyone there to march to the Capitol and fight to disrupt Congress’s certification of Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election. It took hours for the national guard and extra officers to clear everyone out and yet all the members of Congress still came back together at the end of the night to do what they had set out to do. Creating options for our students Lindsay was in the middle of a virtual teacher training when news of the insurrection broke out. Everyone took a 10 minute pause to catch their breath and do whatever they needed for their own wellbeing before reconvening. Once they came back together, there was an unstructured talk where they could talk about what it was they were feeling. And once that had passed, they moved on towards ideas for students and their curriculum. She knew that what was happening needed to be at the front of their session, so they adjusted the workshop to incorporate a discussion about how to talk to the group's classes of mostly white students, specifically about the attack on the capitol. Bringing up heavy or difficult content is something that many teachers are used to at this point given all that has happened last year alone. Lindsay published an article for BetterLesson about talking to students about the U.S. presidential election in November. We've talked about this on a previous episode of the podcast. Many educators had some helpful advice on how to have these conversations. One educator that spoke said that students should get enough space to process their thoughts and emotions. They might talk it out with someone, journal, step outside, or just have some quiet time. Discussions are an option that many like to use because it gives students the chance to express their internal emotions and gives teachers the chance to sit in the “listening” position and consider their student’s frustrations and thoughts. Any discussions that come up should have a reminder of some agreements for engagement preceding them in order to make sure there are opportunities for everyone to be heard and validated. In these discussions, it’s also important to center dignity. “I love Donna Hicks’s book” Dignity”, [as] another great source.. to really center dignity in everything that we do and discuss in our class and name that a person's humanity, either in our class or beyond our class, it's not up for debate in our conversations or disagreements.” Sudden events like this one are important to include in your classroom because of the large effect they have on your students and their communities but some teachers don’t feel like they can just pause their curriculum with the fast pace it’s set at. Almost everything is planned out for the year way in advance. One of the ways a teacher can make it easier on themselves is to adopt a flexible curriculum already based around racial and social justice. This ensures that these important issues that come up have a place in your class and schedule. Another thing you can do is help white students develop antiracist identities within this justice-forward curriculum. It’s important for white students to see examples of white folx as co-conspirators advancing racial justice. If they don't see racism as their issue or they don't see examples of how to challenge it, white students may avoid talking about or acting against white supremacy. Curriculum can also give students space to take action within the class. Examples include:
And lastly, remember to deconstruct and analyze the event itself. As educators, we have to take what we’re seeing on screen and in the news and help students make sense of what it all means. Take all this surface level information and help them figure out how white supremacy is present. Why did it happen? What allowed for this event to happen? How would it have been different if these people did not have white-skin privilege (i.e., advantage)? To recap these points: 1. Give students enough space to process their emotions 2. Design your curriculum with foundations in social justice 3. Help white students develop antiracist white identities 4. Analyze the event itself If there’s one takeaway from this conversation it’s this: “The question that I came to ask myself every day to address this question for my own practice is this: what does it do to my humanity if I don't teach for justice, and is my humanity a price I'm willing to pay?” To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. You can follow Lindsay on LinkedIn and Instagram. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
Morgan Atkins is a third and fourth grade teacher in Rochester, NY. Morgan specializes in Social and Emotional Learning in the classroom. SEL defined by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning as “the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.” She is currently also the head of the General Studies department there where she helps plan events and lead teachers in their creation of curricular scope and sequence documents. Morgan opens the conversation with the urgent message that children who don’t have their mental health needs met are more likely to struggle with attention to content in the classroom. Education needs to reach all students not just white children. That’s what drove her to apply an anti-racist curriculum for her class. It’s important to educate all people on the history and current reality for everyone. But all of this requires the right energy from school staff who may not feel like they have that kind of time or energy. Morgan acknowledged that many teachers are drained and just trying to make it through the day. The way things are currently isn’t going to be sustainable for teachers or their students long term. There needs to be a change with the way we assist teachers and give them the tools they need to support their students in return. So the question that comes up is: How do we improve mental health? What techniques or methods can be used? Putting mental health at the forefront has always been a big dream for Morgan. She believes schools are capable of finding a way to blend social and emotional learning with academics in order to really support these future leaders. She joined a charter school after graduating and was impressed by the school’s attempt to close the achievement gap for low income students and students of color. But even with those attempts, there was a link missing with considering students’ needs. So it was time to head off to another school that had shared leadership and allowed her to choose a behavior management system for each student. During this period, the one thing that Morgan says made a big difference in her teaching life was being introduced to mindfulness. Benefits of Mindfulness Mindfulness is defined in one way as the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something. Another way to think about mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique. Mindfulness is something anyone can benefit from, teachers and students included. It gives students and teachers some powerful ways to cope with stress and find an inner calmness. Not to mention it boosts self esteem. Some teachers across the country have been using mindfulness in their classrooms, hoping to see these changes in their students. Research shows that mindfulness for teachers has reported teachers feeling more successful in their work and having more emotionally supportive and organized classrooms. In the case of children and teens, the results have been impressive. Students who practice more mindfulness show:
After realizing these benefits, Morgan decided to share her practices with her own students. She shares, “I want to give them that tool to cope with their emotions and past, current, or future trauma and I think that adults deserve that, too,”. Educators who are inspired to get more mindful can start this journey is to try some popular resources like the CALM app, Headspace, or Mindful.org. Leaders and admin can also take initiative by hiring outside contractors to guide professional development sessions. There’s a lot of value in having an external organization or consultant who can drop in on virtual classes and offer some objective feedback. This is all connected to the idea of instructional coaching and how it can really help teachers develop their practices in a way that feels manageable. With instructional coaching, there’s no pressure to apply all these things that a coach and teacher discuss. Instead, it’s a way to ignite creative energy and name goals whether that’s a personal goal or a goal for your students. The last thing Morgan recommends is to find some time for journaling. Writing down your thoughts is a simple but effective way to release some emotions, find extra gratitude in your day, and change your mindset. If you want to connect with Morgan, you can find her on her LinkedIn account Morgan Atkins or on Instagram @mindfulwithmorgan. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
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AuthorLindsay is a educator and leadership coach who helps teachers develop engaging project-based curricula, fosters student and teacher voice, and works to advance racial and gender equity and culturally responsive practice. Archives
June 2021
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