#iledchat's collaborative post on Social Justice

This post is a very special one because it was a collaborative effort of multiple members of the #iledchat community on Twitter. #ILEdchat is a chat held weekly on Monday nights at 9 pm CST where educators from all roles and responsibilities get together to discuss issues related to school, learning, and leadership in Illinois Education. While the chat is organized by Dr. Jill Maraldo, Kathy Melton, Dr. Kevin Rubenstein, and me, it would not exist without the great learners and leaders who join us every week. As #ILEdchat want to push our learning experiences, we thought we would experiment with a collaboratively authored blog post that was written together in real time, using Google Docs. Below is the result of this amazing learning experience. Responses have been woven together to create a cohesive post. All contributors are listed at the end of the post and are great people from whom I learn a lot.

Graphic accessed from https://www.portlandoregon.gov/oehr/article/449547?

What is a functional definition of social justice for schools?

Schools and teaching are social justice. Social justice is about providing equity in resources and providing a voice for the typically under-served populations. With an understanding that equity is not the same as equal, there will be some students who will receive more than others, because they need it. A functional definition would include equal opportunity for all students along with community involvement and opportunities. It doesn’t mean everyone is the same, just need to provide same opportunities. And then from these opportunities to learn and teach, the social justice will occur when the lessons learned are applied in real life through a critically conscious curriculum.

It is about educators ability to ensure that all voices, regardless of background, are heard in the classroom.  That students are able to achieve and move forward with the right supports at the appropriate time without worrying about how their backgrounds might impact their futures. Social justice is about giving voice to the voiceless and being about student-centered decisions and structures at schools that support success for ALL!

Social justice is treating all members of a community as equals. Treating each person with equal amounts of respect and valuing each person’s contributions equally. Also, it is accepting each person exactly as he or she is and never demanding that they change who they are. Removing barriers that stop voices from being heard - celebrating diversity and learning from them and their experiences as well!

Knocking down the classroom walls to not only let new people in, but to allow the learning to leave the classroom. Connecting students with the world around them will help foster a sense of empathy for others and  bring pause for their own individual reflections.

Learning need to be created and experienced through multiple lenses and perspectives, not just that of the majority. Schools need to knock down the classroom walls to not only let new people in, but to allow the learning to leave the classroom. Connecting students with the world around them will help foster a sense of empathy for others and bring pause for their own individual reflections.

What are some indicators that social injustices could be occurring in your school?

This section of the discussion caused some serious reflection on our own schools and learning environments that we provide for the community. 

Dr. Lisa Stevenson provided the following for our post:

Data speaks volumes in uncovering social injustices!

-more boys in special education for behavior

- PTA not representative of school's minority and poverty

- teacher efforts and admin to reach the hardest to reach parents

- diversity of kids in extras like band, orchestra, intramural vs. summer school/after school tutoring

Joey Grace, a student at Illinois State University added:

Lately, I’ve been hearing about model nuclear families within literature found in the library. This can cause a distorted view for the ones not from the “typical” family. Also, within a clinical observation of a local alternative school I witnessed, or noticed, language and attitude can be detrimental. If we treat “gangstas” as such, then that behavior persist.

In general, schools need to look for misrepresentation (over or under) of individuals/voices among school groups: social, athletic, academic, or extracurricular. Are there opportunities for students to express their opinions and concerns? If no, that might be an indicator that injustice might be occurring. Why? The minority might not feel a chance to discuss what their individual needs are as a member of the learning community. Does our curriculum represent examples of the cultures that are present within our communities?

Specifically, within the learning experiences of students, we must ask the following questions: Who is being represented in the books that we read to our students? Are there races, ethnicities, types of families, religions, nationalities that are not being shown? Are we preventing students from seeing themselves reflected in the literature we read and the stories we share? Are we stopping students from building empathy for specific groups of people because we are not sharing their stories?

Look at the curriculum.  Whose voices are not being heard? Whose version of history is not being told? We send strong messages to our students about what we value when we choose who to include in our curriculum and who not to include.  If we leave out voices, we send the message that we don’t value their experiences. 

As a part of building the culture and climate for the school among staff and families, there are other groups that can feel misrepresented or that they do not have a voice. This can be localized around students and staff who feel silenced or excluded or even a general feeling of apathy towards the school and community. How often do we listen to those with the least amount of power? 

When we open the doors to our schools, do we notice who is attending? Possibly more importantly, do we recognize who is NOT attending? Are there certain groups of parents and students who continue to not have their voices heard?

Students are sometimes easily persuaded by their parents and older siblings. Parents can sometime send their children to school with preconceived opinions on certain cultures, races, and religious backgrounds. Students then take that as THE way to think. Having communication with parents/community and establishing a true sense of treating everyone as a blank slate, regardless of their background can help eliminate injustices from occurring. Students sometimes don’t even realize what they are saying or how they are acting is causing harm to others.

Discovering misrepresentation among student and community voices/demographics in extracurriculars, academics, fine arts, vocational, parent groups, and on and on. Examine why particular voices are either over or under represented.

In what ways do student & community voice shape the equity of resources and educational opportunities in your school?

One contributor described opportunities for community forums at the school and district levels. There have been chances for students, teachers, administrators, and community members to sit down with both building and district level leadership to discuss the current state of affairs and where they would like to see us go in the future. There have also been chances for community collaborations on grant proposals for community training sessions that would be desired.

Some other suggestions for for the inclusion of under-represented communities included ensuring the inclusion of stakeholder reps for all committees. This will assist in improving communication and making actions more transparent.

One contributor felt like we miss the voice of many when we rely on electronic means to invite, gather, record, etc. Social capital is not had by all and we must differentiate and value how we welcome and hear all of our communities and parents. When conducting needs assessments, do we include all stakeholders and how is the information requested? Too often, for ease of collecting and reporting, we will utilized electronic forms that not all community members may have

What kind of needs assessments do you conduct? Both student and staff. How are the results used? Are you partnering with other community resources? We created a Universal Leadership Team that combines the best aspects of Student Council with Key Club-type actions. They help develop leadership among students that isn’t stifled by top-down mandates.

Sometimes the types of events used to build community spirit can divide communities. School boards or board members with "agendas" can invite or stifle conversation. Even an invitation can act to stifle. The sense of homogeneity some schools adhere to is a myth--on the other hand, a facade of tolerance does not veil bigotry & bias.

What actionable steps would be recommended as a starting point to improve social justice?

As administration, single best thing would be to hire quality teachers! Include interview questions to gauge their level of passion. Additionally, administration can create opportunities for students to activate their voice within the school. (e.g. Principal Student Advisory Board, Community Coffees with the principal., etc.) Also, having school teachers and administrators go out INTO the community to meet them where they are instead of expecting them to constantly come to the school.

Student projects and learning should Include a variety of perspectives, within the social science realm, and implement real life actions to correct ills. And they don't have to be within the four walls of the classroom. To build empathy of students, they should connect to peers and experts all over the world. Pen pals of the 21st century include Twitter convos, cyber relations, use of digital tools such as Skype or the collaboration used to create this document are great ways to connect and learn and explore the world.

Some instructional tools to improve social justice and augment student voice were described and listed below:

• Hip hop as pedagogy! Giving voice to the voiceless, but more importantly, giving them their OWN voice! Story Corps has an awesome theme. Zinn-like!
• Flocabulary! ←--YES!!!!
• Literature can be a great vehicle to improve social justice in a school climate. Taking that a step further, trying to connect with an author, or the area in which the story takes place can truly be a powerful learning activity. Ex: reading about the religious extremists protesting military funerals, and then having a 1:1 Skype session with some of the families. Students take note of it and it changes their daily approach to learning and develop action plans to truly make a difference.
• Following social media sites geared toward social justice keeps a class up to date with latest world or local news. Assign home- or classwork so students engage in a dialogue about it. Build lesson plans from those current events.
• www.newsela.com

Overall, schools should give the people in your community a voice to tell their story. We can use technology as one possible vehicle to improve communication. Tell the story of your school and the people in it.  Open the metaphorical windows and the doors to the school and this can be one way to combat community apathy. Engage the community and the students  - allow students to connect with and understand the needs of the world around them by giving back to their own communities  -- start local.

An important thing to remember is that actionable steps have to be two-way. We have to go where our families are as well as expect them to join us in our school home. Speak their languages (literally) is powerful and respectful. Honor their time (and culture). Show them that you will DO something with what they share that will affect THEIR child for the better.

If I wanted to learn more about social justice, where should I look?

Below are some contributed resources to learn about and explore issues related to social justice and schools:

http://www.sjli.org/ This is the website of the Social Justice Learning Institute. They have some great resources and programs that can be brought into your school.

www.newsela.com

Read closely. Think critically. Be worldly.

Social media sites. No links off hand but can contribute later. Zinn Educational Project Rethinking Schools (magazine and site) has a lot of useful information. I also personally follow social media sites, such as WBEZ Education or Teaching for Change twitter feed, I’m trying to dig through my following list! I hate to add the Badass Teacher Association with the recent claims of racism and other -isms, but they do bring to light social causes.

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/index.shtml

https://zinnedproject.org

Someone switched up font size! Occupy and union pages also typically tweet/post a lot of social causes. Then we must use our creativity to form a lesson! Recent Israeli/Palestinian conflict was touched on in the summer issue of Rethinking Schools.

http://www.globalissues.org

An oldie, but goodie is the magazine/website Teaching Tolerance
Social, Political, Economic and Environmental Issues That Affect Us All

My district will be having Susan O’Halloran as our opening day speaker. She looks like a great resource for social justice: http://susanohalloran.com/newsite/

Conclusions

The development and collaboration of this post was a powerful learning experience for everyone involved. There were times of pure amazement watching multiple people contributing to a section at the same time. We were able to see people react to what other were writing and learn as they typed. This is one type of activity that could be easily brought into schools and let students learn and create with one another. The #iledchat team thanks everyone involved in the development of this post.

Collaborative writing team 

Name	Twitter Handle	Role with students
Bob Abrams	@misterabrams	Associate Principal
Jill Maraldo	@jmaraldo	Associate Principal
Joey Grace	@JOS3PHGRAC3	Education student at IL State
Billy Spicer	@MrBillySpicer	5th Grade Demonstration Classroom
Adam Stevens	@MrSt3v3ns	Secondary Mathematics
Robert Schuetz	@robert_schuetz	Technology Coordinator
Kathy Melton	@kathyamelton	Elementary Principal
Jess Lifshitz	@JessLifTeach	5th grade literacy teacher
Dea Conrad-Curry	@DoctorDea	K-12 Literacy/CC Consultant
Nancy Powell	@NAPmath	Retired HS  Math Teacher, now consultant
Judith Epcke	@jepcke	Director of Instructional Tech K-8
Lisa Stevenson	@lisamstevenson	PK-5 Principal

Standards...Not Nuggets

When I was in high school, I thought my biology teacher was the best teacher I ever had. He promoted deeper thinking and understanding and challenged us to apply what we were learning to new situations. While it may have been inappropriate, I heard him once say that another teacher was teaching "Gee Whiz" biology where the focus was on the interesting little nuggets that can be found in this area of science as opposed to discovering the connecting thread of all of those ideas.

When I take a look at tests that I have written, I know that I reviewed what was discussed in the unit (which was based on objectives aligned with the learning standards) and wrote questions accordingly. I attempted to have question frequency represent the importance of the topic in relation to the unit and the entire year and the time spent in class discussing and explore the topic. (One noted exception was Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, but I told students about that ahead of time. We spent over a week learning how to solve these problems, but there were only 2 questions on the unit exam. This was mainly due to my desire to prep the students for Advanced Placement Biology and received positive feedback from both the students and the teacher about this practice...but I digress)

Recently, I was looking at a rating system for a intervention model of a grant application that our district is going to pursue. We were going to have to have the committee members look at particular characteristics and then, based on the characteristics selected, determine which intervention model is the best fit. Because I have been on various committees like this and know that some people, including myself, are a little mouthy and push their ideas onto others, I wanted to find a way to allow everyone to express their own ideas and then look at the group data to protect the integrity of everyone's voice. As I did this, I wrote some equations into the Excel spreadsheet that would, based on the characteristics selected, would determine the percent alignment with each model.

While this is an isolated event, the concept can be expanded to looking at standards and objective-based assessments as opposed to nugget-based. Previously, I wrote a post about providing students with more immediate feedback using Google forms and included some "coding" instructions. I want to expand on that here...

Before, I was writing about grading the entire assessment based on total points. If the questions are written to reflect one specific objective/topic, then the questions can be coded as such (overtly done in my example below) and the scoring can then be adjusted to reflect topic/standard specific questions and their level of mastery. Take a look at the sample below:




You can see that in the 2nd line of each question, I have included an Objective number. Using these, we can then select those questions to score based by objective and get a mastery level based on these particular questions.

What you will need to do is to develop your quiz in the Google docs and then enter the answer key as the first entry in the spreadsheet. When you look at the spreadsheet, you will see the the questions/column headers are in the first row. After the questions, I added the column headers of Objective 1 and Objective 2.

 

The grading formula for Objective 1 is seen below.

=((IF(B2=$B$2,1,0))+(IF(E2=$E$2,1,0))+(IF(F2=$F$2,1,0)))/3

 

Essentially, what the formula is telling the spreadsheet to do is if the entry in cell B2 is the same as $B$2, then give it a score of 1, if not, a score of 0. Now, the difference between B2 and $B$2 is that when you drag this formula down the spreadsheet for every entry, the B2 will change to B3, B4, B5, etc for each subsequent entry; the $ in front of the cell letter and number makes it static, and will not change with a dragging of the formula. (The same is try for C, D, and E).

 

Since we are looking for mastery of Objective 1, I made the scoring formula reflect only the assessment items that were coded for that objective. On the Google form, they are items 1, 4, & 5, which correspond to columns B, E, and F in the spreadsheet. In order to develop a mastery level, the spreadsheet will take the score for each of those items and then divide by 3 because that is the total number of items for this objective. The color coding occurs with some simple conditional formatting. If the numerical value in the Objective 1 column (H) is greater than .5, the background will become green. Likewise, if less than .5, it will become red. Because there are three items, it is impossible to get an answer of .5, which is why I made it the scoring differentiator. For this instance, we will define mastery as 67% or 2 out of 3 questions per objective. In order to get the conditional formatting, you can either right-click in the particular cell or look under the "Format" menu.

 

The same was done for the Objective 2 column (I), but the scoring formula was adjusted to reflect only the objective 2 questions (2, 3, & 6 or columns C, D, and G, respectively).

 

Once students have taken the assessment, you can drag the contents of the cells H2 and I2 down for each entry on the spreadsheet. By using the "$" in the scoring formula, only the cells without the "$" will change to match the subsequent entry lines. The conditional formatting will be dragged down to the subsequent cells also! Unfortunately, you cannot drag the contents before students have made the entry on the form. If you try the assessment, try dragging it yourself by clicking on the spreadsheet link!

 

This can be extended to more questions per objective and more objectives. This can also be expanded to include question types of "Choose all that apply" (using the Check Box option on Google forms), but this will require a little more work.

 

Explore and play.

 

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via the blog comments or on Twitter (@misterabrams).

Have you thanked your IT director today?

We use Microsoft Outlook for our email system.



The long pause was for all of the Google Apps for Educators users to finish booing and throwing fruit...

Over the past 3 weeks, we have had some interruptions in service. Usually, when we have an interruption in Internet service, it is due to a small power outage, a server switch getting reset, overly stormy and windy day that causes havoc with the alignment of our microwave dishes, website provider server crash, etc. For my 6 years in my current district, these are the first instances of the issue being actually on the Microsoft side.

If you would like to skip the diatribe that will follow and get to my main point, scroll past the section enclosed by the row of asterisks...

********************************************************************************

The first instance happened on the Monday before Thanksgiving. I was going to do some substitute professor-ing at a local university for a colleague of mine who teaches an evening course in methods of reading to pre-service teachers. I have been doing this every semester for the past 4 years and love the opportunity to introduce pre-service teachers to Web 2.0 and technology that can be infused into instruction to increase student engagement. The local university has been under construction and thus, the room where the class is held each semester has changed.

When my colleague asked me to talk with her class again, she sent me a calendar invite with the room number and the time she told the students to show up. I was ready. I had my interactive presentation ready, brief hand-outs, exit slip...these students were going to do some exploring and learning! I arrived at the university about 45 minutes before the class was scheduled to begin, park my car and check my calendar one last time to note the room number...that was odd, the calendar on my iPhone didn't show the event anymore.

I got out of my car and gathered my materials and walked toward the building thinking it must be something with my phone. I would go into the building and log into my web access email and verify the room number. Only problem was that when I logged into the web access email, the calendar was showing a date of November...of the year 2000! This was impressive on multiple levels, one being that for an instant, I thought I had successfully travelled through time, and the other was that I did not work for this district in 2000 and yet they prognosticated that I would grace them with my presence and had established an account for me 6 years before my auspicious arrival. Unfortunately, neither was true.

What had happened was that the authenticating time server that we use (from a US Naval base on Colorado) had an error and its clock got reset to the year 2000. (Those Y2K people weren't wrong about problems that would occur!) While I was in a mild panic, I was texting our IT director to inform him of the issue and see when it would be resolved and my colleague (who was on vacation in AZ) about where the room was.

Long story short, my colleague got back to me 8 minutes before class started with the room number and things went flawlessly for the rest of the evening. Unbeknownst to me and, I am assuming, everyone else in the district, our IT director spent the next 12 hours dealing with Microsoft and making sure that the issue was fixed for no noticeable issues during the next school day.

Most recently, last Friday, the email system shut down again and I received an erroneous meeting reminder that I was 15 minutes late for a meeting 15 minutes away from my office. After burning rubber out of the parking lot to get to the meeting, I found out the the meeting is in one week and I made it back to the office...slowly and sheepishly.

Our email system was just restored as of 9:32 am today. Our IT director and his team spent the entire weekend working with Microsoft to fix the issue, which was a corrupt administrative directory that led to the need to create a back-up of 80 GB of email at a rate of 3 GB/hr, then a defrag of the both the main and back-up servers (remember having to defrag your hard drive?!), and finally a reconstruction of the main server to restore service.

 ********************************************************************************

During this time, everyone was having some difficulty dealing with the lack of email and cursing the system, the IT department, and life in general.

Once everything was restored, I sent an email to our IT director and his team saying thank you for their hard work and long hours getting us back up and running. It got me thinking, how often do we thank people for the thankless jobs they do? If the technology is running properly, you may never have to deal with the IT department. When there is a political issue that is erupting in the newspaper, do you realize that the Superintendent has probably been dealing with this issue non-stop for the past 12-48 hours, speaking with the BOE, lawyers, key personnel involved, reporters, etc?

You might make the argument that this is what they get paid for or why they make the big bucks, but as an educator, doesn't that get under your skin when the general public makes statements about compensation for the work that teachers do?

November just ended and thus the 30 days of thanksgiving that was popular on multiple social networks. While I do not advocate for any religious group, in particular, we should take a moment to thank the people that make it possible for us do get through our day: maintenance, custodial, IT, clerical, and administrative staff, parents, students, etc. Let them know that their everyday work that usually gets overlooked or taken for granted is appreciated and essential.

YOU can make THEIR day!

Using Google Forms to provide quick student feedback

What is one of the biggest challenges in teaching today? I would argue that student engagement could be on possible answer to this question. Possible reason for this is that when we provide students the chance to demonstrate what they know/have learned, the feedback that they receive is slow and does not provide the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

Regardless of students being able to define RPG, LARP, or MMORPG, this is a generation of gamers. Being a gamer today does not mean that you are put on a costume or carry a 20-sided die in your pocket to assist in your daily decision making. With the advent of social networks, there are multiple opportunities for students, both young and old, to participate in a form of learning or entertainment that provides the user with immediate feedback, progress check points, and chances to experiment with choices and then deal with the consequences.

There have been a flurry of articles discussing if homework has outgrown is usefulness. Recently, there was even an article in the Des Moines Register about a teacher providing her students with quests to complete.

Students want to demonstrate what they have learned and how they can improve if they have made some mistakes. Students also want rapid, if not immediate feedback so they can accomplish the former.

To assist with this challenge, you can use a feature of Google Docs to bring a traditional assessment measure closer to the 21st century. I am assuming that you are familiar with Google Forms. If not, you can view the video from Google here:

 

 

While google forms can help with the data collection for an assessment, there is the still the issue of how to provide feedback quickly.

 

Here is one option: (This is strictly a self-grader)

 

 

 

By utilizing some relatively simple spreadsheet formulas, you can have the Google Form grade the answers once they have been submitted.

 

The grading formula is seen below.

=(IF(B2=$B$2,1,0)+IF(C2=$C$2,1,0)+IF(D2=$D$2,1,0)+IF(E2=$E$2,1,0))

 

What you will need to do is to develop your quiz in the Google docs and then enter the answer key as the first entry in the spreadsheet. When you look at the spreadsheet you will see the the questions/column headers are in the first row. Essentially, what the formula is telling the spreadsheet to do is if the entry in cell B2 is the same as $B$2, then give it a score of 1, if not, a score of 0. Now, the difference between B2 and $B$2 is that when you drag this formula down the spreadsheet for every entry, the B2 will change to B3, B4, B5, etc for each subsequent entry; the $ in front of the cell letter and number makes it static, and will not change with a dragging of the formula. (The same is try for C, D, and E). If you have more than 4 items, just extend the formula accordingly

 

Here is another option: (Self-grader with the ability to send results to the student)

 

 

The key to this method is a script that was originally written by Romain Vialard and modified by Dr. Henry Theile. The script can be found here.

 

In the above link, you can see the instructions on how to apply the script to your form and even make modifications to alter how the report is sent (i.e. correct answers only vs hints to improve). You do NOT have to be a programmer to apply these and begin providing students with faster feedback as we transition to more authentic assessments. Those will be discussed in later posts.