Ms. Heather's Stories

Building back better? Only if we walk the walk back from impossible.

Uncategorised Posted by Heather Duncan Mon, April 12, 2021 04:35PM

COVID graduation… It’s a thing. What will it look like in 2022?

By Lisa Peloquin & Heather Duncan

Six- year old Jack, sits at his kitchen table after he uploaded the photo of his timed, one-minute, math “sprint” to his online journal and turns quickly to his next task. He’s pushed through his frustration at not having completed every problem; now he just wants to be done. To his teacher, it will look like Jack never completed the assignment at all, because he uploaded it to the wrong folder. Jack doesn’t know that most of his classmates weren’t able to finish the task in one minute either -something he would have known in a face to face classroom, but Jack has been learning in a virtual classroom. He has never seen his teacher, Ms. Baker, or his classmates in person, so it’s just about impossible for him to know.

Ms. Baker, with her masters in early literacy, has taught 1st grade for 11 years. Her favorite part of teaching is watching her students fall in love with reading. In person, her classes were known for engaging discussions and project based learning. Now, Ms. Baker sits in front of a laptop for 8 hours a day trying to project enough energy through the screen to keep her 25 7-year-olds engaged. Based on his body language, Ms. Baker knows Jack is ready for a break, but she can’t tell if he’s frustrated or bored. Through a computer screen, it’s impossible for her to see if her students are falling in love with -or even enjoying- reading.

At his desk in the district office, Mr. Abrigo rubs his eyes and stares at a spreadsheet of schools with modern ventilation systems. The list is too short. In order to reopen the schools, he has to ensure students and teachers have classrooms with adequate ventilation. He turned to the spreadsheet after reading an email from Ms. Baker’s elementary school principal who is ambivalent about reopening her school’s doors. She has many students who are miserable in remote classrooms and parents who are desperate for their children to return to physical classrooms so they can return to their jobs. She also has serious concerns about how well her 2 custodians will be able to sanitize her 60,000 sq foot building, with an outdated ventilation system.

Mr. Abrigo shares her concerns, and is also worried about the growing divide between white families in his district demanding in-person school and families of color feeling in-person school isn’t safe. He’s distracted when the phone rings. His assistant patches through the third parent call of the morning, a father concerned his second grader with special needs isn’t able to engage in learning because she can’t sit still in front of a screen for a few minutes, much less a few hours. Just another day of countless impossibilities for Mr. Abrigo.

Over the last year, we have faced all of this impossible, and we’re still here. It hasn’t been pretty, but we have put one foot in front of the other and struggled through 2020 and into 2021. With a vaccine becoming more widely available every day, we now get to consider a world of possibilities, moving away from impossible situations and perhaps move toward doing school in a way that centers on all of our humanity and better meets everyone’s needs. How can we take the lessons from the impossible year of 2020 to move towards a better future? Could we rebuild a system focused on honoring the humanity of each student, teacher, and family?

Or as Bettina Love put it:
“We have to now take this moment, when we do reopen schools, to say that same energy, that same creativity, that same ingenuity, that same trust that you gave parents, that same trust that you gave teachers, we want it back. We’re not going back to what we had.”

Consider these questions:

Families: What have you learned about your child’s experience of school? What do your children need to thrive and how can you incorporate it into their lives? What strengths did your children display or build over 2020 and how can you leverage them to support them as they move forward?

Teachers: What can your teaching look like post-COVID? How can you meet the needs of each learner – building on the skills they developed over the pandemic, and providing support for them in the areas where the pandemic both harmed and short-changed them? How can you leverage the relationships and collaboration you have built with families through remote learning to ensure students thrive as learners?

Districts: What inequities and weaknesses have been uncovered by the pandemic? What supports do your administrators, teachers and -most importantly- your students need? What existing needs were exacerbated by a year out of school? What new needs -created by the pandemic and new normal- revealed themselves? What amazing innovations have your teachers developed through the pandemic that you can build on to better support all your students?

We can be glad this pandemic has laid bare some of the inequities inherent to American culture. We can take this moment to look closely at our systems and start telling each other and ourselves the truth. We can capitalize on the crisis to make things better. This happened at this moment so we could stop existing in an unsustainable, pretend world…now we have the chance to see all the underlying problems and address them. We have to know who the people are in our schools in order to ensure we build back better instead of recreating the inequities. In a recent appearance on The Michelle Obama Podcast, journalist Michele Norris opined, “My greatest hope is that we don’t reach for normal, that we reach for better”, and we are uniquely positioned in a moment where that can happen, so how do we begin?

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Partnering with Publics: Why Birth-3 programs should be in every public school

Op Ed Posted by Heather Duncan Wed, May 22, 2019 11:17AM

I heard the crashing sound first, then waited for the long, low wail that came next. It did come, and grew louder and stronger with each of the 5 seconds it took me to race across the room to investigate. Nicholas had done it again…charged into a carefully crafted block tower, knocking heavy, wooden blocks down onto the heads and backs of its builders. As I approached, he darted away snickering, off to disturb the peace in other areas of the room, as was his habit. Nicholas was the first -but far from the last- 3 year old student who entered my class seemingly without any idea of how to co-exist with others, attend to conversations or generally be in a group setting without causing serious trouble every single day. He was the student who opened my eyes.

I had been teaching for many years before the trend became apparent…each year, my Pre Kindergarten students were arriving at school with fewer and fewer of the skills they needed to navigate a classroom. While many children in past classes had enrolled in preschool with no prior group experience, Nicholas showed me that something in society had changed and with that change the differences between children who are “ready” and those who aren’t has grown. How can preschool teachers support Kindergarten readiness when their students don’t have the basic skills they need to thrive in preschool? The way to close this widening gap is to help babies, toddlers and especially kids who miss enrollment cutoff dates by a few days to build the skills they need to arrive at preschool ready to learn.

There are numerous Birth-3 programs in my state of Illinois, all of which have a wonderful goal; the best development experiences for children. Unfortunately, our system of early care and learning is disjointed, and children slip through the cracks because their families are unaware of opportunities or unable to take advantage of them because of distance, scheduling or other issues that make attendance difficult. Enter Child-Parent programs for children birth to age three, playgroups that offer learning experiences for children birth through age 4 and their caregivers with an adult only parent class component that helps support adults’ growth as much as kids’.

Such an innovative model could begin with playtime. Children and adults interact using an hour-long preschool style schedule then transition to an hour where children work with teachers and parents meet separately with a facilitator and other parents to discuss their needs as caregivers. This is pretty standard…the difference could be partnerships with public schools. If classes meet in schools and run near pickup or dropoff times for elementary schools, they would offer parents the chance to manage their schedules more easily. Field trips on days when schools are closed and other activities would create a bond between the school and family while building in the children a growing excitement and understanding about the joys of school. Such kids may just have the leg up that Nicholas could have used.

Nicholas struggled throughout his early years of school, and may be struggling with school to this day. I know that he could have benefitted from a program like this, and it could have changed the trajectory of his early years as a student. I bet I’m not the only Pre K teacher who wishes some of his or her students had benefited from it as well, but it’s never too late to start. With 0-3/family partnerships in more schools, there could be fewer kids like Nicholas next year.

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Circumventing KIDS: How the Child-Parent model helps familes sidestep those scary results

Op Ed Posted by Heather Duncan Wed, March 27, 2019 09:30AM

In the fall of 2017, the State of Illinois rolled out an assessment that may change the face of early education. KIDS (the Kindergarten Individual Development Survey) is an observation based evaluation administered by Kindergarten teachers. It is intended to be play based, even though many Kinder classrooms in Illinois are proudly focused on “academics” in lieu of play based learning. The results seem dismal -only 1 in 4 children in the state were deemed “ready” for Kindergarten- but this was also problematic in many other ways.

Our current culture values testing and data above all else, and we will mine data whenever we can. This means teachers of little kids are focused on results instead of meaningful learning for children via appropriate programming. People are looking for someone to blame for our children’s lack of “readiness” and it’s only a matter of time before the blame for a 3 year old’s “failure” in school is pushed down to where it all begins…the home. And that will be the only bright spot in an otherwise bleak picture, because it will place the focus on where the need for great learning is most profound for young kids.

We have all heard that parents & families are a child’s first teachers, and it’s true. Sadly, most adults aren’t aware of the ways young children learn, so some kids, whose parents and caregivers have learned -or instinctively know how- to have rich interactions are far ahead of their peers. Child-Parent programs seek to increase the number of parents who have these skills.

The adults in these programs work together to model and teach empathy, positive interactions and meaningful use of language to the children in the program. Child Parent Teachers model for parents and caregivers who then model for their children. These skills are the focus because research has shown them to be the most impactful on how children approach their world and eventually interact with peers, teachers and curriculum in school. Children in such programs have a good shot at being ready, but how do we make sure the focus -and the money- is where it should be? That’s a question for our leaders -school and district administrators, local and state level politicians- who need to put the mouth where their mouths are. Sadly, that’s not where they think it should be. It’s time for those who hold the purse strings to listen to those of us who end up holding the bag…instead of opening more half filled Pre K classrooms, consider more 0-3 program offerings. If we’re trying to have kids who are “right from the start” we need to start at the beginning, and that’s not age 3.

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Thinking It Over:Teachers & Students Reflect On Learning

Practice Posted by Heather Duncan Sun, March 26, 2017 01:52PM

At the start of every school year, teachers are bombarded with new initiatives from district administrators, some helpful, some…less so. My first year teaching Pre Kindergarten in CPS, one of the numerous mandates that came down from on high was daily reflective journaling. Journaling…no big deal. Preschool classes journal all the time. The difference was, this directive focused on teachers. They gave us each a cute, spiral- bound book with 2 columns o n each page, and we were supposed to carry these around to take anecdotal notes about students in the left column. At the end of the day we were supposed to read over these notes and decide upon next steps, then district administrators were going to collect and read them at the end of the year. This was pretty much all the guidance we were given, so of course, the backlash was swift and severe. I don’t know anyone who kept that practice up until the end of the school year. Except me. I knew the administrators were onto something whether they explained it properly or not…whether they knew it or not. So I tried, but…let’s just say it would have been easier with a plan.

Fast forward nearly 20 years and reflection is back with a vengeance, but this time in a world where data is king -where everything must be quantified or it serves no purpose. The good news is, we are knee deep in guidance these days. This is also the bad news. With access to so much information, it’s easy to go too far, which is why I like Graham Gibbs’ debriefing cycle and adapted it for use in my classroom. Today, my reflections are a far cry from my primitive, pre-millennium musings. They’re much better, and they help me strive to “visit distinguished” in my daily practice as Charlotte Danielson says we all should. In fact, Domain 4 of CPS’ Framework for Teaching (FfT) says a distinguished teacher “makes an accurate assessment of a lesson or unit’s effectiveness… and is able to analyze…his/her practice.” Here’s how I do it:

Map your reflection cycle

(Gibbs’ Reflective cycle via I’m Stian)

Gibbs (1988) suggested the cycle above for reflecting upon experiences in order to learn from them, and it’s a good place to start, but it’s a personal choice, so you do you. Modify to fit who you are and what your day looks like. For me it looks more like this:

Reflect on your teaching

If I’m reflecting to improve my practice, I have to practice first. As a teacher this works two ways; I think about what I’m teaching and how, and I think about the feedback I’m getting from my students. That means that sometimes, my reflections happen on the fly, DURING teaching! I’m not journaling about it, but if something is really working (or really NOT working…) it’s worth a minute to improve the experience for me and my students.

Teach students to reflect on their learning

Reflect on what you learn from your students’ reflection and start over

This is where the process becomes a cycle. What’s happening during your lesson? What are students telling you, verbally OR non-verbally? What does all of it mean for your practice? Only you know, but many agree that we can always improve! The purpose of reflection is to do a better job next time we attempt something, so use what you learn to become a better teacher, then keep the cycle going.

Resources:
Gibbs’ Cycle
Mind Tools

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Goal Setting & Self Assessment With Young Learners

Practice Posted by Heather Duncan Thu, January 19, 2017 03:27PM

Setting goals for learning is the first step in metacognition -thinking about one’s own thinking. Teachers set goals for their students, seek to help students build this critical skill themselves, and design instruction that scaffolds their ability to plan, execute and reflect on their work. They facilitate as students become adept at taking ownership of their learning by teaching the basics of setting goals and helping students repeat the process as goals are met. Finally, Teachers encourage students to recognize the value of their learning process and encourage them to take pride in and ownership of the work they do. These photos demonstrate one method for teaching early childhood students to choose, set, articulate and evaluate their own goals.

So how can we help the youngest learners to set goals and reflect on their own learning? Follow these steps to get started!

1. Create a set of goals based on standards. In the beginning, choose goals that are easily understood and visual. I started with name writing because not only is it easily measured, it’s a goal Pre K teachers commonly have for their students, but also one which children can become deeply invested in meeting. Because preschoolers are interested in the next grade, I also name “Kindergarten” as the pinnacle of goal mastery to get kids excited about meeting goals.

Goal: Name writing

Levels: Beginner (lowest)
Preschooler (middle)
Kindergartener (highest)

2. Create 2 rubrics for each goal; the first for yourself so you’re sure of the criteria for success, the second, a visual or picture rubric for your students.

Teacher’s Name Writing Rubric

Teacher Rubric.png Student’s’ Name Writing Visual Rubric

3. Make an oversized version of the rubric available to students and help them set goals. Many will choose the highest possible goals to set! They may also rate themselves at mastery when they have not yet reached it. It’s important to explain that they may not yet be where they want to be.

Pocket Chart Visual Rubric

Red=Beginner (lowest)

Yellow=Preschooler (middle range)

Green=Kindergartener (mastery)

4. Offer opportunities for students to reflect on the goal regularly, and encourage them to consult the rubric when working on a related task. This will require a lot of coaching for the smallest students. Be prepared to explain the concept many times, and keep the rubric consistent or similar until they understand what self-assessment means.

Students Self-assessment Of Their Name Writing

5. Teach students to make genuine comparisons to the samples or pictures on the rubrics and to be honest with themselves about their levels of mastery. Reinforce that it’s okay to begin at the lowest levels and that hard work will help them move toward mastery. Conference with them several times for each skill or standard to be sure they are thinking about their learning as they work, they understand the process of self-assessment and they are beginning to rate themselves with accuracy. For skills like name writing, conference the entire year.

Next steps? Choose a skill and dive in! Use the accompanying template as a starter, then tweak it to make it your own! As students get comfortable with the process, incorporate less tangible SEL goals like sharing and taking turns. When they get really good, encourage them to notice their strengths or needs then set their own!

Self-Assessment Conference

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One Time, I gave this TEDx Talk…

Practice Posted by Heather Duncan Wed, January 18, 2017 08:40AM

Teaching at any grade is isolating, and preschool teachers often have it the worst, but I say educators can be more effective when they find ways to collaborate. I share my own success stories and lessons learned, as well as practical guidance for schools to initiate the collaboration that is essential to strong teaching and student achievement.

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Using Students’ Intrinsic Motivations To Reach & Teach

Practice Posted by Heather Duncan Thu, December 01, 2016 07:51PM

I was so tired of nagging my preschool class to clean up after their free choice time. No amount of sternness, no threat could make them do it faster or more efficiently. I was at my wits’ end. Then I realized; I couldn’t make them do it. They had to want to do it for themselves. Now, they can clean up in a snap, but I had to appeal to their motivations to get there. Read on to find out how I did it.

The Theory Intrinsic motivation theory asserts that students learn best when they have a choice in what they are learning and find the material interesting. Wouldn’t it be great for every student to choose what they want to learn and how they want to learn it? If they could, no doubt everyone could be a successful student and learner. This idea fits neatly with the various theories about learning, learners and how teachers can best reach every student in every class. How can teachers access students’ motivations to help them move forward through content? Let’s start with some background…

Learning Styles are the different approaches each of us take to learning about the world around us. These may be naturally occurring and are not mutually exclusive…some of us have different learning styles for different learning. Visual Learners learn through seeing. They may think in pictures and learn best from visual displays like diagrams, illustrated text books, projections, videos and handouts. Auditory Learners learn through listening. They learn best through lectures and discussions and can benefit from reading text aloud and listening to recordings. Tactile/Kinesthetic Learners learn through moving, doing, touching & actively exploring the physical world.

Multiple Intelligences is Howard Gardner’s theory suggesting seven different ways to demonstrate intellectual ability. It is closely linked to the above mentioned Learning Styles and consists of 7 types of learners: Visual/Spatial: a preference for learning with pictures, images, and spatial understanding. Aural/Auditory-musical: a preference for sound and music. Verbal/Linguistic: a preference for learning with words, both in speech and writing. Physical/Kinesthetic: a preference for learning by using the body, hands and sense of touch. Logical/Mathematical): a preference for using logic, reasoning and systems to learn. Social/Interpersonal: a preference for learning in groups or with other people. Solitary/Intrapersonal: a preference for working alone and using self-study to learn.

Learning Styles & Academic Motivation Ken Bain describes another set of learning styles -those that relate to motivation- in three ways; intrinsically motivated deep learners who respond to the challenge of mastering a difficult and complex subject, surface learners who are motivated by a fear of failure, and strategic learners who are a blend of the two, and are motivated primarily by rewards, competition and the opportunity to beat others and “win”. Knowing what kind of learners are in front of them can help teachers to reach every student by appealing to each one’s style.

Reaching Students By Appealing To Their Motivations Teachers know they have to differentiate to reach every student, and are increasingly called upon to plan curriculum which teaches the same subject matter many different ways. So how can teachers plan work that will motivate their students? Bain suggests “hitting them where they live”: *Know your students. When you know what makes them tick you can plan accordingly. *Offer choice. The more options you offer students to practice and master content, the more likely you are to reach every kind of learner. *Clarify purpose. Even the most tedious tasks are easier to face when there’s a good reason.

Determining Student Motivation What can teachers do to learn more about their students and appeal to each one’s learning style? Use this checklist to determine your students’ learning motivation styles, then make sure your classroom environment and lessons offer an entry point for every learner. Use this template to ensure each lesson you teach offers something for everyone and every style, every intelligence and every kind of motivation. Print the PDF or download the docx and customize it for your class. Planning this way can help move teachers toward distinguished practice particularly in Components 3a, 3c & 3e of the CPS Framework for Teaching Domain 3, Communicating with Students. As for me and my preschoolers? It took a schedule change to turn the tide of classroom clean-up; I moved our group game time to a slot after work time. It worked, because most of my class would rather lose a limb than miss a game of “Who’s Got The Bean Bag?” Of course they don’t clean up swiftly and perfectly every single day -they’re preschoolers- but most days a quick reminder of what they could miss if they dilly dally usually gets things moving. They know what they want, and they know how to get it, I just offer the reminders. The rest is up to them.

Want to know more?
Motivation To Learn: From Theory to Practice, Deborah J. Stipek

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions, Richard M. Ryan & Edward L. Deci

Making learning fun: A taxonomy of intrinsic motivations for learning, Thomas W. Malone & Mark R. Lepper

What the Best College Teachers Do, Ken Bain

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Teach To Lead Part Deux, The Sequel And The Summit

Leadership Posted by Heather Duncan Wed, October 26, 2016 06:15PM

My role as a “teacher leader” keeps me
on my toes and on the run. I write this blog post as I multitask lunch with a
Larabar and water bottle, because there is never enough time to do everything I
need and want to do. Between planning for teaching, reflecting on my practice
and actually working with students, where is the hour in the day to talk to my
family or do a load of laundry? Let’s not even talk about sleep. The “busyness”
can be taxing, and I suspect that the constant access, always “on” lives we lead
-what the creators of my favorite work tote call the “7am- 10pm” lifestyle- is
going to start causing more burnout and faster turnover in the world of
education. When I found myself possibly facing that kind of burnout, I did
something weird…I took on more work.

I have a lot of meetings, and I’m a teacher.
Teachers generally aren’t free during the day because they’re teaching, so a
lot of these meetings occur after school hours, which can make for a grueling
day. Or not. A long day that is also stimulating and productive can prove to be
a savior to someone in need of renewal. Enter The Chicago Public Education
Fund.

The Fund created a monster in 2013. That spring
I answered the call for The Fund’s Summer Design Program (SDP), and started one
of the most satisfying partnerships of my career so far. Contacts I made during
SDP -and the craving I got for more partnerships- have led to a number of
professional growth opportunities for me. More meetings, yes, but more
satisfaction with my work life as well, and it started with The Fund. As such,
many who know me are aware that when the Fund calls, I always answer; SDP,
Educator Advisory Committee (EAC), speaker at or participant in programs, I am
there. What is less obvious is that this is a quid pro quo relationship.

School closures rocked my school, South Shore
Fine Arts Academy, to its core. The fledgling program, not even 5 years old,
suffered an identity crisis after becoming the welcoming school for Fermi
Elementary, and we used the Summer Design Program to begin forging a way
forward. Three years later, with fewer than 10 of the original 30 faculty &
staff, we are still working to build a strong school community with fresh,
clear-eyed leadership from our Principal Vicki Lee and Assistant Principal Peter
Davis, but it is still an uphill battle because teachers can be solitary
creatures, inside our own 4 walls. Accomplished teachers at South Shore come
from various backgrounds and have diverse levels of expertise that is rarely
shared among peers due to a lack of sufficient funding which would allow us
time to observe each other, and a culture that associates observations with
performance rather than professional development. We knew that in order to
improve outcomes for our students, our goal had to be to build a cohesive
school culture by increasing community through teacher collaboration. We saw a
need and we wanted to create a plan to meet it, but how? Enter Teach To Lead.

According to their site, Teach To Lead Summits
allow participating teachers, principals, districts, supporting organizations
and states to:
Share ideas and best practices and learn from examples of existing teacher
leadership efforts;
Identify common challenges and create concrete, actionable teacher leadership
plans to address them locally;
Network and build relationships with other educators and leaders in their
region; and
Identify promising ideas for follow-up support through future engagement
events.

This was the technical assistance we needed, so
I harangued a group of 5 -including my principal- into creating a team. The
cost of the summit is covered by the US Department of Education, but they ask
participants to seek sponsorship for their travel. As my school has been
working on this problem since we participated in the Fund’s second SDP, and
because my stint on the EAC has contributed so immensely to the leadership
roles I have accepted since, the Fund was a natural choice! Armed with backing
from The Fund and school leadership on board, we were primed for success.

Aside from the gorgeous weather, and fun social
scene in Long Beach -including Compton High School Class of 1966 who really
know how to party at a reunion- this experience was invaluable, particularly
with our principal in attendance. The chance to look at our problem with a
thought partner and away from the pressures and distractions of our everyday
school experience allowed us to delve more deeply into possible solutions. That
our top administrator agreed to join us was a coup and really raised the
stakes. Teacher leaders can influence, sure, but principals can be the driving
force in a school community. Having Mrs. Lee’s input and commitment means we’re
a step closer to realizing our goal.

Our team left Long Beach with a
logic model and a plan to reach our goals in the short, medium and long term,
and we have started the work in our school. We’re excited to share our ideas
with our colleagues and have a solid outline for moving our school community
toward cohesion. Finally, we bonded as a team and benefited from being outside
of the walls of our school. It was good for us to see each other as more than
“Ms.” Someone and “Mrs.” So-and-so, and it reinforced what we conjectured when
writing the initial proposal…educators need to see each other in many ways to
build community. Our Teach To Lead Long Beach team is our goal in microcosm,
and an excellent seed for our future growth.

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