Assessment practices and diabetes

Below is a diagram of how a human body typically regulates blood glucose levels:

http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/diabetes-glucose-regulation.gif

The concept show above is common in biological processes. It is known as a negative feedback loop. A negative feedback loop works because a stimulus (in example below blood sugar level) causes an action. The action results are monitored to stop the action once the it has reached an acceptable level. 

In a person who does not have diabetes (either type I or type II), a high level of blood sugar would cause the pancreas to release insulin that would stimulate the cells of the body to take in the blood glucose and causes the liver to go through the metabolic process of changing glucose into glycogen for storage in the liver (See yellow arrows). In a person who does not have diabetes, a low blood sugar level would cause the pancreas to release glucagon, which has the opposite effect of insulin. Glycogen is broken down in the liver and glucose is released into the bloodstream. When an acceptable level of blood glucose has been reached, the stimulation of the pancreas stops and the insulin and/or glucagon is no longer released.

In a person with diabetes, the body has an abnormal blood glucose tolerance and does not produce insulin (type I diabetes) or has decreased sensitivity to insulin or inability to use their own insulin (type II). Either way, the feedback look is broken. Either the stimulus does not begin the action or the action is not stopped after monitoring.

Our current practices in assessment are like a person who has diabetes. The feedback loop is broken. Students participate in instruction, they take an assessment, and instruction continues, regardless of students' results on the assessment.

If we are to actively utilize assessment for learning (instead of assessment of learning), then the use of these assessments must be formative and instruction must be adapted to match the needs of the students (i.e. blood sugar level). 

From Kanold & Larson (2012), Common Core Mathematics in a PLC at Work, pg. 90

As seen in the cycle above, steps three and four are the key monitoring pieces to achieve step 5. Students must be active contributors to the Teaching-Assessing-Learning cycle. They must reflect on their classroom practices, as teacher should, to help alter actions in class. If this learning environment can be cultivated, both students and teachers will help drive needed changed in instruction to meet the needs of students and to assist them in achievement of their learning goals.

Educators cannot continue to provide assessments without the clear understanding of how they will be used to adapt instruction to help students meet the learning targets. If a student does not demonstrate that they have learned the information/skills from a unit, what sense does it make to just push them down the curriculum road map that is scaffolded upon that previous information?!

Diabetes is a disease that is treatable is monitored closely, but at this time, there is no way to fix what is "broken". We can fix the broken part of the teaching-assessing-learning cycle.

Effective discussion facilitation technique

I attended a training recently and much of this day long meeting included facilitated group discussions. The presenter demonstrated some quality discussion techniques that I wanted to write about so I can share with others and so I can remember them.

For reflection, an easy practice is doing a 3-2-1. It can be set as a chart to help the participants organize their thoughts. Knowing that these can be modified, here is what the presenter used: 3 key pieces of information, 2 questions that you have, and 1 think you what to learn moving forward. This is very similar to KWL, but a variation can help teachers or presenters have some different flavors of techniques to keep things fresh and changed to help with group engagement.

For discussion, the presenter previewed the 5 categories/topics that he wanted each small group to discuss. During the designated discussion time, he helped to ensure that group conversation by stating what topic number we should be on at this point in the conversation. While this was not revolutionary in thinking, when we got to the group sharing of the discussion, there was a practice that really resonated with me.

In his assessment of the discussion topics, he recognized and stated  that topic #1 was dominating the conversation, even with his helping the discussion progress. Because of this, he reversed the order of the topics during the group share. This allowed for groups to spend a more equitable distribution of time for each topic and not have the sharing dominated by the "strongest opinionated topic". Information was organized on a chart for all to see with strengths and opportunities for improvement and the comments were sorted accordingly.

The concept of reversing the order of discussion compared to the sharing allowed for topics that might have been discussed for a smaller amount of time be given a little more time for open discussion. Interesting technique!

If you have other strong presentation/discussion facilitation techniques, please share!

Following conferences on twitter

I had a teacher come to me after attending conference who was excited to tell me about the conference within the conference. She was talking about the use of the conference hashtag to discuss what a keynote speaker was talking about, finding resources from breakout sessions, and finding new colleagues with whom you can connect and from whom you can learn. Her excitement about the new possibilities of connecting and learning got me thinking about my experiences with conference hashtags and connecting to other conference attendees.

When I was talking with another teacher about a conference she will be attending, I described the experience of the other teacher and using Twitter and the conference hashtag. This new teacher is eager to learn new things and was excited by this potential addition to her learning. So she asked, how can I easily follow the hashtag?

My big conflict has always been wanting to use my iPad because of its portability, but needing to use my clunky laptop in order to follow the hashtag on twitter with ease. I love using tweetdeck to establish separate columns for specific hashtags and it allowed me easily know who was new to following me and any notifications and direct messages I might receive. The iPad Twitter app can be used follow a hashtag, but you would miss out on your general stream of people that you follow.

When I asked my PLN about this issues, some of the great people I follow made some suggestions:

Bob Schuetz and Megan Ryder suggested the use of HootSuite. I have used HootSuite to be able to post to multiple networks with one click, but rarely used it as a reader for the networks. It was a good idea and a functional solution because HootSuite has a good app available for both iPhone and iPad.

Megan also shared an idea of Nicole Ring and it blew me away. It was one of those ideas that everyone should be able to think of, but she put idea into practice and shared it. After I saw the idea, I just had to write about it and share it. Nicole's idea involved the iPad web browser and Tweetdeck. She suggested that you log in to Tweetdeck using the web browser, establish your columns as you would on the desktop version, and then save the tile to the home screen. VIOLA! You now have a home made iPad version of Tweetdeck!

I look forward to trying this out at the next conference I attend. I appreciate my PLN for sharing the great ideas that they have!

Public Service Announcement about Smoke Detectors

Have you ever noticed that you smoke detector screeching is kind of like a baby wanting to be born? Rarely does it ever occur at a "convenient" time of the day.

Hopefully, when it goes off, it is because you are cooking and the pan gets a little too hot and sends some smoke into the air. I know in my house, it is usually when I am doing the cooking (as opposed to my wife), and then we are all running around with dish towels fanning air by the detectors, opening doors, turning on the exhaust fan, trying to comfort the children who are scared of the loud noise and hate the alarm. These are the easy occurrences.

The scary occurrence is when the smoke detector goes off in the middle of the night, waking you and your family from a deep sleep.

We had an instance of a carbon monoxide (CO) detector go off around 8 pm in August. Somehow, our children were not awakened by the loud noise and my wife and ran around opening windows and doors to get fresh air in the house, yanking the detector off the ceiling, and calling 911 to have the local fire department come and check. When the fire department came, they could not detect any levels of CO, but I made it difficult by opening the doors and windows. They told us that it was probably a false alarm and because they could not detect an parts per million (ppm), we did not have anything to worry about. They said that if an alarm went off again, do not hesitate to call the fire department again. We went to sleep that night, and unfortunately, the firemen demonstrated some precognition because at 1:30 in the morning, the alarm went off again.

This one was extra scary because now my wife and I were awoken from a deep sleep, and disoriented, we had to figure out what was going on. Again, we called the fire department and again, they detected no CO, but recommended that we keep the alarm that keeps going off unplugged and replace it once stores open. We apologized for having them come our for nothing, twice, and they selflessly said that it is their job. They were glad that it was a false alarm and that no one was injured or in danger. They also apologized because one of the firemen admitted that he should have advised to keep that one detector unplugged.

This morning, after I dropped my kids off at school, I came hope and no sooner than 5 minutes of being at home, the CO monitor alarm went off. Thankfully, the kids and wife were out of the house and I was home because of a day off from school. We repeated the 911 call and it was the same firefighters from August who came to the house. They checked all over and found 0 ppm of CO, again. In our discussion, the firemen shared some information that I want to pass on.

Smoke detectors and combination smoke and CO detectors are only supposed to last 5 years. They are all date stamped in the back. I found some in our house from 2006. I called customer service of the company that manufactured the detectors, explained the multiple events and they offered to send me new detectors. As we approach the changing of the clocks for daylight savings time, it is a recommended time to check all smoke detectors and put it new batteries, I pose the following question to you: When was the last time you replaced your detectors, not just the batteries?

You detectors are all date stamped on the back. While I knew about the times of year to change the batteries, I did not know about the need to replace the detectors on a cycle.As a precaution, I have replaced all of our smoke detectors and smoke/CO combo units. This is one appliance in your house that you do not want to find out is not working until it is too late.
Luckily, this was just a learning experience for me and no one was injured. I hope that my experience today will help ensure the safety of your family. Support and thank your local fire protection department.

Please share this with colleagues, students, and families.

The newest foreign language

This clip is from the movie The Core. While the movie is of questionable quality, this clip encapsulates the meaning behind a conversation I had with one of my math teachers.

The math teacher came to me asking my experience with computer programming. Now, while it was a while ago, I did have some experience with computer programming. In elementary school, I had some experiences with BASIC and creating simple programs. When I was in junior high school, I took a summer class in LOGO and our computer class added to work with BASIC. After junior high, it was mandated, as a part of my math education, I had to take a little more advanced class in BASIC. My class was the last class to take BASIC before the evolution into True Basic and the loss of line numbers.

Sometime between my freshman year of high school and beginning teaching in high schools, the requirement of a computer programming course seemed to have disappeared. While most people might have not had many chances to apply their computer programming skills, I actually used my understanding of programming to make my wonderful TI-81 a more useful tool and created programs of algorithms so I did not have to remember them. (This was before programs could be shared and beamed to one another with TI calculators.) So when I started teaching freshman biology and asked students to use their calculators in this method, they looked at me like I was crazy and I had to change tactics quickly.

Flash forward to a few months ago and the conversation with this math teacher. She was telling me how, as a math major, she was require to take computer science courses and even pointed out the programming courses still listed on our course taxonomy. The conversation quickly morphed into more current applications of programming (Scratch, app development, JAVA, Flash, etc.) and how might she implement these in her classroom.

I then posed the question, why is programming part of the math department and not part of the world language department. While Spanish and Chinese are languages spoken by large portions of the world population, it is arduous to find anyone on the planet not affected by some type of computer programming.

Of course, after I had this conversation, neural priming went into effect and I saw multiple articles in my Twitter feed about this conversation, which I have linked below:

Is coding the new second language? -- From Smithsonian
Should coding be the new "foreign language" requirement? -- From Edutopia
Programming as a second language -- From Learning & Leading with Technology

So I ask you, will colleges accept 4 years of computer programming to meet the world language requirement? Is being able to create new programs more important that being able to ask "Donde esta el bano"? (Which I can tell you it is much more important to understand the directions than ask the question...) Do computer programming languages meet the 21st century need more than Spanish or French?

What do I wish that I had known?

The counseling office is one of the departments I have the honor of overseeing. I am willing to admin that, when I was in the classroom as a teach, I did not really understand what the counselors did. I did not utilize my guidance counselor much when I was in high school, so I did not realize the resource that was available to me. Counselors are educators who go through extensive training to do exactly what their name says: counsel. Whether it is about the courses to take for the next school year, where to apply to college, dealing with difficult emotional issues, bullying, troubles at home, teen pregnancy, eating disorders...pretty much anything there has been an after school special about, counselors are on the front line. They are a wonderful resource and connecting point to a multitude of additional resources. That is one thing I wish I had know when I was in high school, or as a teacher.

We have had college nights in the past, but typically it was in January and for seniors in high school. By that point, college applications and financial aid forms should have already been completed and it makes the usefulness of the evening moot for most parents and students. The counselors came to me with an idea...have a college night much earlier in the year...and invite parents of juniors to attend as well. I told them to run with it. They came up with the sessions, the speakers, the plan, and the logistics for the entire evening. In fact, I am writing this post as the parents and students are in one of the sessions. To improve things, we have an evaluation form for the parents and students to complete so we can make sure that future nights will be designed to better fit the needs and desires of the our families.

I thought it was fantastic that the counselors wanted to get families involved earlier in the process and not wait until the student was in 12th grade to begin thinking about college. I want to take it a step further.When is the time that students should being thinking about their post-high school plans? As a parent, I think that it should begin before the child is conceived, but if we start them thinking about specifics when they are freshman, that can be very useful. There is a slogan being kicked around the have a College 101 night. I say make it College and Career 101and let's go with it.

College and Career 101 can be for the 9th grade students and parents. Further events in the year can be named College and Career 102, 103, etc. For our 10th grade students and parents, we advance to College and Career 201; 11th graders will get College and Career 301; 12th graders get College and Career 401. Which brings me to the title of the post...What do I wish that I had known?

This is the question I want to pose to our parents and our students who have gone through this series of events this year. Their wishes for information will help us design the 9-12 College and Career preparation curriculum. I want to include the student voices to help guide our underclassmen through this high school process to help them be the best prepared for whatever their post-secondary plans may hold.

What do you wish you had known?

Coaching by listening

One of the best parts of my position is discussing what teachers are doing with students in their classrooms. I enjoy the conversations had between colleagues about the choices, practices, and results in their classes. It is a great chance to reflect and I encourage the teachers with whom I work to see the observation/evaluation cycle as the most honest professional development in which they will participate.

As I reflect on my own practices, I stumbled across the Partner Discussion Protocol from a conference I attended. When there are partners working together, here is how it generally works:

·        A shares, B is an active listener (then switch)

·        A shares need, goal, or ideas for evidence

·        B’s role is to probe and push with ?’s

o   What’s going on now?

o   Why do you want this to change?

o   What exactly is your goal (desired change)? 
o   How will you know is changed?

 In the administrator/teacher dynamic, there may not necessarily be the reversal of roles, but idea of identifying the wanted change, defining the reason for the change, and being able to assess if the change has actually occurred is definitely valuable.

As the concept of peer evaluators gains popularity, this model can be applied after a pair of observations has been completed. The role of the active listener is key.

As it has been said: "We have two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we speak".

I have a dream...50 years later

On a hot August 28th, 1963, a quarter of a million people gathered on and around the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. took the podium to address the crowd. His speech from 50 years ago is still regarded as one the best pieces of spoken rhetoric in history. While I work in a district that has a majority of African-American families and will take the opportunity to share this message of needed work and hope, this message can be shared with all students.

Here are some resources for you:

Full text of the speech 

Some facts about the speech

Please mark this 50th anniversary by providing students that the chance to read or listen (or both) to the speech and think about what they can do to make that dream a reality.

You have 1 week to plan! Share your experiences or ideas in the comments!

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/1431982

Don't live in the 10 seconds

Welcome back to another school year. I am sure that there have been changes all over the place. Change can be a wonderful thing, but very difficult to accept and deal with in the moment. We become very comfortable with the status quo, sometimes even when we know there are things that can be improved.

For students, change occurs all of the time causing them to have to continually adapt to new situations. Over the summer, when discussing how to help students express themselves better, about their academic, emotion, physical, psychological, etc. needs, a teacher told me that kids today tend to "live in the 10 seconds". They react before they think about the larger picture, understand the root of the issue, what is the real cause, and what some of the effective solutions could be. When this happens, sometimes students will yell and scream, hit, withdraw from communicating, and other non-effective actions to help remedy the issue. If we, as educators, accept that we must educate the whole child, then we must educate them on social emotional needs, conflict resolution, goal setting and achieving, in addition to their academic needs. But we know this...

As we open the school year, we, the adults, need to keep the big picture in perspective. Teachers might not like having to switch classrooms, when their planning period is, classes are full, teaching assignments change, etc. With the excitement and hiccups that always accompany the opening of school, we need to NOT live in the 10 seconds. We need to look at the larger picture to solve the immediate issues and once things have settled down and reached equilibrium, then we need to reflect on the system and look for improvement. Changes that happen will disrupt equilibrium and that is uncomfortable. Adults need to discern the difference between the discomfort of change and an actual problem. If it is discomfort, give it a chance to work and know that reflection and evaluation will occur to make improvements. If it is an actual problem, we need to develop a solution and then monitor if that is the best scenario for the big picture.

As leaders, we need to exercise our listening abilities to help teachers discern those differences and identify them ourselves. We need to effectively communicate with teachers about the big picture and prioritizing how issues will be handled.

Change is never easy. But when the need for change is communicated, team members listen to one another, and the change is understood to help the system improve, it can be an easier pill to swallow and might allow people to see the 11th second and beyond.

Have a great start to the year!

Happy birthday, America

237 years ago, on this date, 56 men committed a heinous act of treason that we call our Declaration of Independence. So how has it been going?

Please take this short survey. Results will be shared.

This is my boss

In the never ending series of changes to my role and responsibilities (which I can appreciate because if we cannot change and adapt, we go extinct), I am currently in charge of the summer bridge program. This is a program where students who had some difficulty getting through 8th grade are provided support in reading or math in order to support them in their transition to high school. The students are reluctant at first to accept the ideals of the program and every once in a while, a student will be sent to my office to discuss choices that they have made that might have led them to this program and the choice they most recently made. The discussions with the students usually go pretty well and we are able to get them to reflect on their choices and be cognizant of the triggers that lead to them.

Every once in a while, one of the teachers will tell a student "This is my boss". While I would like to think that, for the teacher, the meaning is colleague, supporter, and fellow learner, I get the feeling that the teacher is indicating to the student that this is the person in charge and if you won't behave for me, you had better do it for the boss. This has left me perplexed.

On one hand, some of these exchanges will progress out of the developing teacher-student relationship. Essentially, the teacher is saying "Look, I know you are having a difficult time right now, but please, for MY sake, don't make me look bad in front of my boss". If that initiates the desired behavioral change, then that indicates to me that the teacher has made a connection with the student, and vice versa, and for each others sake, a change in choice will be made. This is a good thing that relationships are being developed, but is it truthful? Why is the external motivator of "the boss" needed?

On the other hand, the "this is my boss" comment seems to give up control, power, and authority (for lack of better terms) that the teacher of a class should have. It reminds me of when a teacher writes a discipline referral for a minor classroom issue. The referral sends the unintended message to the student that the teacher no longer cares to deal with this issue and will pass it off to someone else. Is that what the "this is my boss" comment is going for? Does the teacher lack some confidence or not feel the immediate support to enact a decision that they feel is best for the student and the class?

This situation reminded me of the "Front Porch Leader" by Jimmy Casas (@casas_jimmy). "It is in these moments that leaders must decide to leave through the back door or take a seat on the front porch". Am I being overly critical of a teacher who uses the boss as a deflection? Are they leaving through the back door? How often do I use my boss as a deflection of why we have to do something? This is something I will have to contemplate in this new school year.

Why is it different in school?

I have been in the workforce since the age of 15 and a half. When I first began, it was part time work as a cashier and stock boy in a local pharmacy. If there was a large project that needed to be completed, especially in a short amount of time, a few of us working that day would work together, divide the tasks, and, at the end of the day, report out what was completed and what still needed to be done. The people working the next day would pick up where we left off until the project was complete.

This process continues in my work as an administrator. When a large project comes in, we will sit down, discuss the goals and expected outcomes, divide up the tasks, assign realistic deadlines, and provide progress reports. If one of us runs into an issue or has a question, we ask our colleagues for their expertise, guidance, and ideas. When complete, it is OUR project. While individuals might be recognized for a specific contribution, it is the work of the whole that gets evaluated. We stand or fall together.

As a child, I participated in multiple team sports and learned the skills of cooperation, teamwork, problem solving, settling disputes, providing guidance, accepting assistance. These skills were mirrored at home because I have a sister and we would have to get along. When disputes arose, we had to figure out how to co-exist peacefully.

But, as I grew up, I also received conflicting training and information. For 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 36 weeks a year, I was told that I needed to work only by myself. I could not confer with others, share ideas, or seek out advice from someone with more experience. In the rare instance that I was able to work with someone else, when it came time for the task completion, I had to complete my own and the credit or fault was all mine. The same was true for anyone with whom I may have worked. Work was duplicated and it was evaluated on an individual basis.

Why the two different systems? Why is it different in school than out in the "real world"?

I understand that in the early grades it is a matter of ensuring that each student has assimilated essential skills in order to effectively participate in a team structure and share in the problem solving. It is even essential to do so in the upper grades as new information is introduced in newer, more complex content areas. But if we focus on skill development, once the basics have been introduced, should we, in the educational world, model the skills and project completion models that the business world is asking for?

Having been a part of our career and college readiness, I have heard from many local business leaders that they would prefer a generalist, who has good communication, teamwork, and problem solving skills, and the business can provide them more job-specific training. That models what Thomas Friedman discusses in The World is Flat. Schools will need to meet the flexibility that the working world has discovered the need for.

Why do schools force isolation, in both practice and assessment? Why does the federal government mandate it...without funding.

Let's try something different! Flip the class, PBL, cooperative assessments...something has to give. Leaders need to be supportive as they push instruction out of the standard comfort zone of the adults to move the learning into the comfort zone of the students!

Make the gloom go away

I believe it was Gandhi who said "Be the change you wish to see in the world". It is in that light that I would like to share some low-cost and/or free things that can be done to make the gloom of rainy mornings go away to help improve the school climate within your buildings.

Last night, the #iledchat (9pm CST every Monday) discussed school climate. We had a great turn-out and the moderating/development team of Kathy Melton, Kevin Rubenstein, Jill Maraldo, and I are ecstatic about the increasing involvement of people across the world coming to participate in the weekly chat. If you would like to see the archive of the chat, please check out the storify link.

The discussion began with what can you do as a teacher or leader to create a positive school climate and went from there. It was refreshing to see that so many educators, both classroom teachers and building leaders, saw it was their responsibility to contribute to a positive school climate. They really lived the Gandhi quote. As Mr Z (Josh) stated: "[I] tell myself every day I decided how my day starts".

During the chat we asked the question about what programs/activities did you do that have added to a positive learning environment. There were some great ideas. Below, some of those ideas are included with some of my ideas that were low cost or free that can help improve school climate. While my high school economics teacher would remind me, "Nothing in life is free. There is cost associated with everything". I am focusing on ideas that have low monetary costs.

• 15 minute meetings - Teacher share successes and challenges in a 1:1 meeting.
• Surveys of staff mood with a report out and solution generating sessions
• Surprising a group with treats (homemade or store bought)
• Administrators sub for teachers to let them go home early
• Administrators go out an start cars/scrape ice on snowy, icy days
• Meet teachers in the parking lot with an umbrella on a rainy day
• Hold a staff talent-show for the kids. The experience will bring many people together.
• Know when to listen and when to try and solve a problem, but provide TIME and OPPORTUNITY for this
• Send a quick birthday email
• 'Atta Boy notes when someone does something of note...you decide what is something of note
• Staff friendly competitions (athletic, artistic, trivia)
• Community service projects

These are some ideas. Obviously, there are MANY MORE. Start here to improve your school climate. A principal of mine worked to build a climate around the Fish Philosophy: Be there, Make their day, Play, and Choose your attitude. http://www.charthouse.com/content.aspx?nodeid=22610 How often do you feel you are playing at work? You made the CHOICE to be there? A local (self) change in attitude can permeate throughout the building.

Overall, find a way to make sure EVERYONE get recognized. Everyone is special in some manner.