There are many strategies and ideas for developing/deepening identity, in order to be an anti-racist human. This starts with knowing the “Why” and includes developing understanding of the intersections of the different parts of one’s identities. Below find some ideas around identity exploration.
Strategic Design & Delivery of Services
The Opportunity Myth
The Opportunity Myth has been the foundation at several workshops I’ve attended. The past several weeks, my staff has started studying the research findings in connection to priority standards and identity work. I highly recommend reading the report, rereading the report, and connecting the report to other professional learning topics. In this post, I want to summarize some of the themes I’ve gleaned from reading.
Beliefs and Expectations
Yesterday I finished reading Unlearning: Changing Your Beliefs and Your Classroom with UDL, by Allison Posey and Katie Novak. I highly recommend this book! The book gave me many take-aways and ideas to reinforce my understanding of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). In today’s post, I want to focus on expectations and beliefs, as I think these are the key to changing the way we do school…. and key to creating more socially just, inclusive school systems.
Equity and Access: The Universal Design for Learning Guidelines
Just as we design buildings to be accessible by all people, we should design accessible learning opportunities. No two learners are alike – we are as unique as our fingerprints. If anything is a constant in education, it is that we can expect variability in the students and the adults with whom we work, each with individual strengths and goals. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework through which educators can intentionally plan for a variety of ways to access, engage with, and express learning. The learning is towards rigorous and meaningful goals. This is a huge move toward high outcomes for all learners. In this post, I want to share some thoughts and resources around UDL.
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The Power of Questions and Prompts
In last week’s post I wrote about a thought-provoking activity, Banned Words. This week I want to discuss a powerful follow up to addressing Banned Words/deficit language. Elena Aguilar’s Coaching Sentence Stems is one of the most useful tools in my coaching toolkit. When used within a trusting partnership or team situation, the stems can lead to shifts in language and in the focus of a conversation.
Beliefs and Language
Sustainable change happens when beliefs change, because beliefs influence behaviors. Sometimes, behaviors need to change to help people see the potential behind expanded beliefs. In other words, I need to see it, to believe it. Awareness can also be leveraged towards changing beliefs. In well facilitated meetings and effective conversation, we can raise awareness. We can create experiences and conditions where awareness changes behaviors, which aligns with or scaffolds a change in beliefs.
High Leverage Coaching and Mentoring Tools
Effective coaches and mentors use tools to best meet the current goals of a colleague. Reflective coaches practice, reflect on, and improve on their use of tools. They plan for conversations with an intentional review on past conversations, select potential tools for the upcoming conversation/s, are committed to showing up for the colleague, and know that the journey is where the real learning will occur. As a result, a coach needs to be flexible and follow the colleague’s cues and most pressing questions/challenges. I want to write, in this post, about what high leverage tools do, and share some of the high leverage tools I use at this time.
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Resilience and Humor
This week I found myself returning to my breath numerous times throughout each day, to reset myself and strengthen my resilience. It was a week full of many opportunities and learnings, and a very full week which often left me feeling rushed and stressed. It was a week that reminded me of the importance of resilience, especially now.
“Emotional resilience is the ability to bounce back after a setback
and to thrive, not just survive, in the midst of challenges.”
-Elena Aguilar
As we prepare for the week ahead, my colleagues and I are intentionally trying to support resilience. There are hundreds of strategies for building resilience. The Onward Workbook and website are rich sources. Yesterday, we opened The Onward Workbook and the strategy of using humor immediately resonated with us. In this post, I will write about humor, drawing on the work of Peter Jonas.
Humor helps you be here now.
It yanks you out of the drama of an experience,
away from ruminating over the past or worrying about the future,
and plunks you in the present.”
– Elena Aguilar
Engagement and Interactive Read Aloud
This week I am co-presenting a professional development session on increasing student engagement. We are modeling strategies to use both face to face and in a Zoom platform. The strategies are designed to increase student thinking and discourse, decrease teacher talk, and provide a variety of ways for students to respond. We choose to model our engagement strategies through Interactive Read Aloud (IRA), because IRA is one of the strongest equity moves in reading instruction as it models the work of a proficient reader, exposes students to diverse texts, provides opportunities for rich accountable talk, and texts are above what students can read independently thus giving a glimpse of what lies ahead for readers. In this blog I want to share some of the strategies we plan to share.
“Student engagement is the product of motivation and active learning.
It is a product rather than a sum because it will
not occur if either element is missing.”
– Elizabeth Barkley
How Do Implementation Drivers Support Implementation?
Effective implementation of any high quality instructional practice is most effective when supported by the three Implementation Science Drivers: Competency, Organization, and Leadership. In this blog I want to summarize these drivers. This week I was reminded again and again about the importance of the Competency Driver of Coaching, in particular.
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