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The spark for this episode comes from my just-for-fun reading life. I was reading (actually listening to the amazing Lauren Graham) One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle. In Chapter 3, Serle describes the main character traveling for the first time on her own like this: "I am somewhere new where I have to be nimble, alert, present. It forces me into the moment in a way I hadn’t been in a year, maybe even ever.”
This connected with me because I want to be more present in the moments of my life. It also made me think about my experiences in the classroom when my students led discussions. This type of lesson "forces me into the moment.” When students run the show and can take the conversation in 100 directions that I have to be ready for, it requires me to be "nimble, alert, present." Why? I don’t think I’m alone. Many teachers—many humans—likely want to be more present in the day-to-day moments of our lives. Educators also have a ton of things to constantly be doing or thinking about doing, which takes us out of the moment. Certainly, there are many structural supports we need to put in place to improve teacher working conditions, including taking tasks off teachers’ plates. At the same time, I’d love to see leaders helping teachers to co-create the class conditions and design lessons for thoughtful student-led discussion. In my experience, this creates moments of professional satisfaction (seeing my students be brilliant without me stepping in is an absolute joy) and one of the more immersive types of experiences I’ve had as an educator (you know those ‘Oh wow, class is over?!’ moments). Leaders (Coaches, Department Chairs, PD Facilitators) Can… Step 1: Ask teachers to identify when they feel most present during class. Invite teachers to share, brainstorm, and plan how to create more feelings of being fully present with students. Offer any supports that may help (e.g., professional learning resources, opportunities to start meetings with a moment to reflect on moments of being present). Step 2: Offer Professional Development sessions on student-led discussion. Set teachers up for success by helping them plan out:
Step 3: Support teachers new to student-led discussions to try it out. Decrease the pressure. Trying new pedagogical strategies can be scary, especially strategies that require teachers to step back and respond to student ideas versus adhere to a structured information-sharing type of lesson plan. Co-create a list of evidence of success with your teachers. This way, you can emphasize the focus on student comments and actions instead of teacher actions. Step 4: Encourage visits to peer classrooms. Invite teachers who frequently have rich, student-led discussions to share what they do well. Ask if anyone would be interested in having teachers new to student discussions visit their class to see one in action. If yes, you can share a Google Doc/Sheet where teachers can add dates and times when they are having a class discussion. Offer coverages for visiting teachers as needed. Step 5: Facilitate ongoing reflection. Regularly invite teachers to share successes such as insightful student comments and practices or discussion questions that have generated high student engagement. Final Tip I’m inspired by Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan’s concept of a pedagogy of student voice, which they write about in their book, Street Data. In it, they encourage teachers to design lessons that have students talking 75% of the class time. Since publication, I’ve heard Shane Safir say the percentage maybe should have been even higher. I think this is a great goal to guide our aspirational teaching, coaching, and leading. To help you help teachers implement more student-led discussions in your school or district, I’m sharing my Circle Facilitation Guide with you for free. (This is my all-time favorite student-led discussion protocol!) And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 139 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. TRANSCRIPT I'm educational justice coach, Lindsay Lyons. And here on the time for teacher podcast, we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling, and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings. If you're a principal, assistant superintendent, curriculum director, instructional coach or teacher who enjoys nering out about co-creator curriculum of students. I made this show for you. Here we go. I'm so excited about this episode where I was listening to an awesome audio book and I was like, this is the thing that I think synthesizes being a human and being an educator in education and also really helpful practical strategies for student discussion in the class, which is a strategy that I'm always talking about and an ambition that I think we all have is that we want students to lead conversations and lead what goes on in the classroom. 00:01:10 So here we go. Let's get into it. So the spark of this episode comes from my just for fun reading life. I was reading, actually listening to The Amazing Lauren Graham. I love Gilmore Girls One Italian Summer by Rebecca Star in chapter three Soul describes the main character traveling for the first time on her own. Like this quote, I am somewhere new where I have to be nimble alert present. It forces me into the moment in a way. I hadn't been in a year, maybe even ever end quote. Now, this connected with me because I want to be more present in the moments of my life. It also made me think about my experiences in the classroom when my students led discussion. So this type of lesson quote forces me into the moment in Cyril's words, when students were in the show and can take the conversation in 100 directions that I have to be ready for. It really requires me to be again in Cyril's words, nimble alert and present. So why turn this into a podcast of his own? So I don't think I'm alone. I think many teachers, many human beings in general, right? 00:02:14 Like we want to be more present in the day to day moments of our lives. Educators along with many people, right? Also have a ton of things to constantly be doing or thinking about doing, which takes us out of the moment we're always thinking about the next thing we're always worried about a fire that's definitely gonna gonna happen in the class or some student behavior or uh I'm being observed. And so I have to be worried about my evaluation and assessment from some other person, right? I think there's a lot of things that happen in teachers minds that take us out of the moment. But what a powerful situation to be in, to be present with people in the act of learning to be present when creativity hits or when insight develops and comes out or when we link the pieces together and get this new realization of the world or of a concept, right? That is brilliant. And for those of us who have been in the classroom and are now out of the classroom, I I want to include leaders who are still in school buildings that maybe not in classrooms all the time. Like for us, I think that is really tangible, really something that you can or probably have experienced in your educational career post being a classroom teacher. 00:03:28 Those are the things we missed, right? Those are the moments that we remember fondly that we want to still kind of be part of our day to day. If possible, we want to be in classrooms as much as we can because that's where so much of the joy is now. Certainly there's a lot going on in education, there's high turnover for a lot of really powerful reasons, right? It's not without reason that people are leaving the profession. And so there are many structural supports, we need to put in place to improve teacher working conditions, of course, including taking a lot of tasks off teachers plates. At the same time, I'd love to see leaders helping teachers to core the class conditions and design lessons for thoughtful student led discussion in my experience. Again, these are the moments of professional satisfaction that I experienced, seeing my students be brilliant without me stepping in or assisting them. Absolute joy, absolutely joyous and, and, and one of the most immersive types of experiences that I've had as an educator. Those you know, oh wow, classes over already moments. 00:04:30 Those are the moments. It's when the students were running the show, when the students were discussing and I was sitting back and just taking notes and listening to their insights and the unique ways that they drew connections across classes or linked to their experiences or pose kind of a new. What if the world looked like scenario that I had never considered before? So what do we do with all of this? Right? Leaders, this includes coaches, department chairs, PD facilitators, principals, all the things. Here's what I would encourage us to think about doing. One. Ask teachers to identify when they feel most present during class, brief, reflective activity, invite teachers to simply share brainstorm plan how to create more feelings of being fully present with students. You could also do this with colleagues. But I think for our purposes today, let's talk about when do they feel present in the classroom? So just invite that conversation, then offer any supports that might help. So if they've planned out like, well, here's where I feel more most present and I want to do more of this. Here's what I think I need offer as many of those supports as we can. So that might look like professional learning resources, opportunities to start meetings that you have with teachers with a brief moment of reflection on the moments of where were you present or when were you most present during this week? 00:05:45 Like which moments of your class did you really feel that moment of presence? And what were you doing? And how could we do more of that? Right? Just creating space for that reflection at the start of our meetings can be just AAA mental stopping point where we say no, we have a lot of tasks, we have a lot of things on the agenda for our meeting, but this is what's important and this is what we want more of. So we can at least take two minutes to go around and everyone share for 20 seconds. What were those moments of presence and how do we do more of them? And just also to connect human to human to see what the teacher across the hall believes or experiences as those moments of presence, maybe those could be moments of presence for us, but maybe it's also a connection for us to hear about another person's presence. The next thing we can do offer PD sessions on student led discussion. I think this is critically important. One of the things that I think sometimes we do and I certainly am um falling into this category myself, as I say, oh, we should do more of this. But without offering all of the supports about how to set it up, right? If we just say go do student discussion, it could crash and burn, it could be like, really not effective. 00:06:54 And then the teachers, like, why would I ever do that again? Of course, I wouldn't. Right. So there's so many things to consider and if we prepare well for it, it can go well, I think it's also really hard whenever we're trying anything new in education or otherwise to recognize where, ok, we just have to refine and try again and keep trying because it's worth it versus this is crap and I wanna stop doing it. Why would I do this again? Let's quit now instead of just like dragging my students through the kind of slog, I think this is one of those things where it is worth it, but we have to be able to do enough upfront so we can see where it's worth it. So thinking about what we plan out, then we have to help teachers plan out what to do in advance of the student discussion. For example, we need a compelling question. If you have a Socratic seminar, for example, and your que question is just like very bland or very teacher facing. It's not compelling students to jump out of their seat wanting to answer. Then we're not gonna probably have a very great discussion. We might have a discussion, but it's not gonna be monumental. 00:07:59 It's not gonna be full of excitement. It's not gonna be that moment of presence that we're really looking for. We also want to make sure that we core discussion agreements. The class culture has to be one where discussion can flourish and harm is going to be at least reduced or prevented to a great extent. We may not always be able to ensure that harm isn't going to happen, but we can core and have the conversation about those discussion agreements ahead of time and that's really critical. We don't just dive into a discussion without talking about how do we discuss in a way that is generative and honors the dignity of all students. I've had episodes about that in the past. Feel free to reference those for more on that. I also think we want to talk about how we respond to things that might happen in the discussion. Now, for this sometimes teachers are so fearful of what might happen that they don't even, that might be the number one reason they don't wanna have student led discussion, right? So let's proactively address it, things that could happen, harmful statements, students cause harm to one another, inaccurate statements that are positioned as facts. 00:09:03 So I think you just comes out and just says a thing like it's true and it's totally not right. Like what, how do we think through that um discussion agreements that are violated? Right? All of these things could happen. How do we address it as an educator? Like as a leader? I wanna make sure that all of my teachers are comfortable and confident in how to address each of those scenarios. So we wanna talk through them in advance of the actual discussion also. What can we do after? So some of those things that happen in the moment we want to address in the moment and some of them we want to address after. So part of it knowing what to do in the moment is what do I do in terms of speak right now in the middle of class when it happens? And what are the pieces that I'm like? Ok, I'm not gonna say anything. Now, my action in the moment is silence. I'm going to come back to this either at the end of the lesson or the next lesson. Also, if you were interested in this episode and really amplifying discussion strategies at your school. My favorite all time. One is Circle Protocol. I'm sharing my Circle facilitation guide with you for free and you can get it at Lindsay beth lions dot com slash blog slash 139, for example, um I want to address factual statements the next lesson. 00:10:14 So I might just make a note in my paper. We're gonna come back to that the next day. We're gonna do a whole class lesson on these five statements that are questionably factual. And we're gonna talk about source bias and we're gonna actually determine whether they're factual or not. And that's going to be a lesson versus a harmful statement if harm was caused in the moment, I'm gonna jump in probably that. Right. So it's going to depend and we wanna work with teachers to determine what's their comfort level. What questions do they have? Like, what do we need to work through? Um that the demands that we, we act and, and what can absolutely be more helpful if we plan for the next day? Ok. So what to do after might be also reflecting as a class. It might be that you share your feedback. Here's what I heard. Here are some amazing statements that I loved. Here's some insightful things, here's some discussion agreements that were followed really well. I really liked how this student invited this student to speak when he realized she hadn't spoken or whatever. It might also be, as I said to address inac inaccuracies and statements or repair harm as needed. Now, I also think we should be supporting teachers. So third thing we can do, support teachers new to student led discussions to try it out. 00:11:22 So that act of just trying that orientation of like we're gonna learn requires us to decrease the pressure. So trying new pedagogical strategies can absolutely be scary, especially those strategies like this one that require teachers to really step back and respond to student ideas versus I have the plan. I'm following the plan. Here's the structured information sharing type of lesson that's very common in teaching. I learned this in teacher school. I'm gonna put a transparency on the board kind of vibe and we're just gonna go through it when you have to respond to what students are doing way harder than to just follow your scripted lesson plan. So what do we do to make teachers feel more supported in this testing kind of phase? We co create a list of evidence and success with your teachers. For one, I think being able to name, here's what we're looking for. Here's what I wanna hear or see or you know, experience in your class. Here's what I think that's I'm trying to decrease my a list language. I think that's what I want to say right here is what I want to experience. Here's the evidence that we are seeking as we enter this classroom, right? 00:12:26 What does it look like? And this way, you can really emphasize in that co creation with the teacher of what the evidence looks like. We're actually focused on student actions instead of teacher actions So what are the students doing? Not, what is the teacher doing? That's what we're looking at. And that really decreases the pressure on the teacher. I think also and I, I almost think they should go without saying, but when we're trying something new, that's not when you observe for like something that goes in a teacher file, right? That's not a formal observation. This is just like coaching, right? So we're not encouraging a teacher to do this for their observation lesson. OK. Four thing we can do encourage visits to peer classrooms, invite teachers who frequently have really rich student led discussions to share what they do. Well, so what's the protocol you use? What is, you know, what do you do when X happens during a class discussion? Right? Let's learn from people who are doing it well with this. Maybe the same students that I have in my class or you know, students who are at least in the school building also ask if any of those teachers would be interested in having teachers who are new to student discussions, visit their class to see a discussion in action. 00:13:37 If they say us, I think it's really great to set up some supporting documentation. So for example, to share a simple Google doc or Google sheets where teachers can add here is the date and time I'm having a class discussion, feel free to visit. And then as a leader try to see if you could just step in and cover that class for the visiting teacher if that's needed, right? Or, or arrange a sub for the day, right? So if a teacher is having discussions all throughout one classic, bring in one sub to kind of rotate through and sub for the teachers who are going in different class periods or something, right? Like really make it a priority, this thing we could do. I think it's really important to facilitate ongoing reflection. So regularly invite teachers to share successes such as insightful student comments. I think those are the best, right? This is what the student said. And here is how they connected this current event with like three different classes and they made this el a history connection they brought in science or math or they actually connected to something they're doing in pe or they like just had this beautiful insight and we just want to share it, right? 00:14:43 Because we can get really jazzed about student ideas as educators, right? That that is something that's going to keep the momentum. Hi and to keep the momentum going, I also think things to share include like practices. So what are the protocols or you know, I I think a lot of people are challenged by Socratic seminar. So one of the things that in concert with many teachers over the years that that we did where I worked the last school I worked at kind of the network actually a network of schools kind of built together over time and refined what a student worksheet would look like. And so it became like, OK, page one of this three page student seminar packet was an entrance ticket. So we need the entrance ticket to be able to have a basic like you did the work enough to get into the discussion kind of thing. And then there was what are we doing during? OK. Well, we are gonna ask you to write down at least two statements that you heard and what you think about them, which you can do later, but you have to write at least two pieces of evidence down that your, that your peers shared. OK. Now, what do we do after we reflect on, did we learn anything factually any new ideas that came to us? 00:15:47 How did the discussion agreements go? Do we do? Well, there, do you want to do better next time? What do you want to do better? So the protocol itself um as well as the practices or resources involved like the worksheet also discussion questions. So I think it's really hard sometimes to come up with a really highly engaging discussion question often you'll see in my unit dreaming episodes a question that frames a whole unit, for example, might take half of the conversation because once we get that now we're rolling and everything kind of falls into place, but that's really important. So the more we can curate kind of really compelling examples like students really gravitated to this example, we can identify patterns in that. So is there something maybe a frame, a type of question or a sentence starter almost of the of the question that is really compelling across student groups? And let's try to use that as kind of our best practice moving forward. I am as a final tip here, inspired by Shane Ser and Jamila Dugan's concept of the pedagogy of student voice, which I've talked about before they wrote about this in their book Street Data, which I love in it. 00:16:53 They encourage teachers to design lessons that have students talking about 75% of the class time. And actually, since the publication of this book, I've heard Shane Seir say the percentage maybe should have been even higher. But I think this is a great goal to guide our aspirational teaching, coaching and leading. So as kind of a shared goal to orient us to this conversation of what do we want our school to look like? What do we want our classrooms to uh kind of feel like? Right, what's the experience we want people to have? How do we increase that presence for teachers? That joy of like, yeah, I feel professionally successful because my students are doing this because I help them to get to that point. And also my students are just brilliant and I get to soak it in and I get to be nimble. Right? I get to be responsive and I get to just be fully immersed in this moment of amazingness. Right. That is exciting. And so what does that look like? Well, maybe it looks like 75% student talk time or student engagement time as a student creation time in, in some regard where it doesn't have to be verbal talking. But I think that is the goal and I can't wait to hear how people are using this or doing this kind of thing. 00:17:59 Please share more tips with me. I would love to hear them. I cannot wait to be in some classrooms this year and really get back in there and start experiencing the brilliance of students myself. Super stoked. Here we go. If you like this episode, I bet you'll be just as jazz as I am about my coaching program for increasing student led discussions in your school, Shane Sapir and Jamila Dugan, talk about a pedagogy of student voice in their book street data. They say students should be talking for 75% of class time. Do students in your school talk for 75% of each class period. I would love for you to walk into any classroom in your community and see this in action. If you're smiling to yourself as you listen right now, grab 20 minutes on my calendar to brainstorm. How I can help you make this big dream a reality. I'll help you build a comprehensive plan from full day trainings and discussion protocols like circle and Socratic seminar to follow up classroom visits where I can plan witness and debrief discussion based lessons with your teachers. Sign up for a nerdy no strings attached to brainstorm, call at Lindsay beth lions dot com slash contact. Until next time leaders think big act brave and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast Network better today, better tomorrow and the podcast to get you there, explore more podcasts at teach better dot com slash podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode.
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AuthorLindsay Lyons (she/her) is an educational justice coach who works with teachers and school leaders to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice, design curricula grounded in student voice, and build capacity for shared leadership. Lindsay taught in NYC public schools, holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the educational blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Archives
November 2024
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