In This Issue:

1. Cultural competence 101

2. Giving suggestions to colleagues who see themselves as “artists”

3. Bending the teaching quality curve toward greater effectiveness

4. Shifting students from a fixed to a growth mindset in math

5. How teachers can balance discipline with caring and passion

6. Ways to handle difficult conversations

7. Staying on task in a world of distractions

8. Consumer information on K-8 math textbooks

9. Short items: (a) The Kappan/Gallup Poll; (b) Global news online

 

Quotes of the Week

“Coaching is not what you know. It’s what your student learns. And for your student to learn, you have to learn him. The greats spend a lot of time understanding where the player is. The day they stop learning is the day they should stop teaching.”

            Andre Agassi, tennis great, in an interview with Alison Beard in Harvard Business

            Review, October 2015 (Vol. 93, #10, p. 136), https://hbr.org/2015/10/andre-agassi

 

“Your planning horizon has to be longer than 97 milliseconds.”

Daniel Bartels (quoted in item #7)

 

“It’s laughable to think that evaluating one or two classes, often atypical lessons put on for the administrator’s benefit, can significantly improve a teacher’s performance.”

            Kim Marshall (see item #3)

 

“A blend of family attitudes, cultural ideas, and frustration often leads students to believe that math ability is a fixed trait like eye color…”

            Evie Blad (see item #4)

 

“[T]hey assume that if parents don’t show up, they must not care. Addressing this prejudice requires a major shift in thinking – from ‘how do we fix families in poverty to how do we fix the conditions that make engagement less accessible to families in poverty.’”

            Paul Gorski, quoted in “Hold the Line: Engagement Practices That Welcome Families

in Poverty” by Laura Varlas in Education Update, September 2015 (Vol. 57, #9, p. 1,

4-5), available for purchase at http://bit.ly/1OpFQt0; Varlas can be reached at

[email protected].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Cultural Competence 101

            In this Harvard Business Review article, Sarah Cliffe interviews Brandeis University professor Andy Molinsky about his research on dealing with cultural differences without violating one’s sense of self. This article is intended for business leaders working in international contexts, but it has implications for K-12 educators working in multicultural settings.

When people interact across cultural boundaries, says Molinsky, they first have to figure out what the cultural norms are and how they differ from their “home” culture along six dimensions:

-   Directness

-   Enthusiasm

-   Formality

-   Assertiveness

-   Self-promotion

-   Self-disclosure

Then people need to figure out the “zone of appropriateness” as they deal with people from different cultural backgrounds. Finally, they have to figure out what adaptations are needed (and that they’re willing to make) and practice until they are comfortable.

“We tend to exaggerate what’s required,” says Molinsky. The key is being sensitive while figuring out your comfort zone. “Does giving criticism more directly (for example) make you feel sick to your stomach or just strange and uncomfortable? People’s answers vary greatly. The gap is about who you are as much as it is about your culture. If there’s a big gap between what’s considered appropriate and what you’re comfortable with, that’s the place to start.”

Here’s another example. A manager asks his employees for their ideas, but the norm in this organization is that managers make top-down decisions. People interpret his reaching out as a sign that he doesn’t have any ideas of his own and isn’t a competent leader. The manager figures this out and ends up using a hybrid approach: he continues to ask people to contribute ideas because he believes it will help them grow professionally, but then makes top-down decisions on his own.

When leaders are trying to adapt to a new culture, says Molinsky, they sometimes feel inauthentic (“This is just not me”), less than competent, and resentful. “We know in theory that we need to adapt to different cultural norms,” he says, “but it’s really hard, stressful work. And when you’re stressed, you’re generally at your least creative and productive. So you resent the whole situation.” But he’s found that if leaders hang in there, they get over the hump and may even learn interesting things about themselves – perhaps aspects of the culture that are a better fit with their personality.

Building relationships across cultural barriers is “huge,” says Molinsky. “Once someone has gotten to know you pretty well, they’re going to cut you some slack when you screw up, which you will. You’ll cut yourself some slack too if you feel that you’re known and trusted and that people wish you well.” Self-conscious commentary on culture can be a helpful part of building relationships and trust. A Dutch manager giving a presentation in Chicago knew that back home, he would never include a joke in a business presentation. But in this American setting, he said, “I’m about to do something very un-Dutch” and put up a relevant Dilbert cartoon.

Bicultural people have a big advantage in multicultural situations, says Molinsky. “They’ve already learned how to code-switch – how to make an almost unconscious calculation about which set of behaviors to use depending on where they are. They don’t have the deep, magnetic default that most people do.”

 

“‘Companies Don’t Go Global, People Do’” – An Interview with Andy Molinsky by Sarah Cliffe in Harvard Business Review, October 2015 (Vol. 93, #10, p. 82-85),

https://hbr.org/2015/10/companies-dont-go-global-people-do; Molinsky can be reached at [email protected].

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2. Giving Suggestions to Colleagues Who See Themselves As “Artists”

            In this Harvard Business Review article, Kimberly Elsbach and Brooke Brown-Saracino (University of California/Davis) and Francis Flynn (Stanford University) share their research on how to comment on the work of colleagues who identify as creative artists (not necessarily in the conventional sense). The challenge is that these people are usually much better at giving ideas than taking suggestions. They often contribute in valuable ways to their organizations, but they’re resistant to feedback. Why is this? “We discovered that the problem centers not on ego but on identity,” say Elsbach, Brown-Saracino, and Flynn. “A healthy percentage of people in creative roles self-identify as ‘artists’ and react in unproductive ways when they feel that identity is being threatened… Their strength of feeling can energize them tremendously and sometimes drive them to achieve nothing short of genius. It may also make them resist useful feedback and great ideas if that input seems to put their core identity at risk.”

            So how can suggestions (and criticism) be given to the artists among us in a way that it will be listened to and acted upon? The first step, say the researchers, is to understand what makes artists tick. People who fit this profile often prefer to work independently on projects and want the final product to carry their distinctive stamp. This is different from those who see themselves as problem solvers and are more comfortable collaborating with others and embracing any worthwhile idea. Artists tend to have a creative signature style (No. This is my idea. This is the way it should be), want control over how their ideas are generated, shaped, and executed, aren’t commercially motivated, and don’t take well to rules, power, and authority. “Non-artists may misinterpret these attitudes and behaviors as arrogance rather than as (at times unconscious) manifestations of creative identity,” say Elsbach, Brown-Saracino, and Flynn. “If they instead recognize why an artist colleague sometimes resists their ideas… productive collaboration becomes more likely.” They recommend four tactics:

            • Offer broad suggestions. When working with self-identified artists, specific input is threatening. Presenting a fully formed idea implies that you’re trying to impose your own creative stamp or are trying to take control of the process. One artist explained why he hated specific suggestions: “It’s almost like they’ve already decided on the way the project should go and have no respect for what I’ve done.” A more-effective approach is to give general suggestions, “seed” ideas, and inspiration.

            • Temper your enthusiasm. “Although artists believe passionately in their own ideas,” say Elsbach, Brown-Saracino, and Flynn, “they are more receptive to input from others when it is presented without emotion.” As one artist put it, “Too much passion about their idea says to me, ‘I don’t need you anymore’ and ‘I’m going to do this my way.’”

            • Give them space. Don’t push artists to react immediately to a suggestion. They often need time to think about its merits and perhaps figure out how it can be incorporated into their signature style.

            • Show respect and like-mindedness. It’s smart for colleagues to ask questions, be familiar with the artist’s previous work, understand the creative process that produced it, and generally “get” their thinking.

            Getting insights into the artistic temperament and using these four tactics can “help managers enable all kinds of talent to flourish and create value together,” conclude the authors. “By taking the time to understand how your colleagues’ identities affect their perceptions and actions – and then behaving in ways that respect them – you reveal your own gifts as a collaborator and a professional.”

 

“Managing Yourself: Collaborating with Creative Peers” by Kimberly Elsbach, Brooke Brown-Saracino, and Francis Flynn in Harvard Business Review, October 2015 (Vol. 93, #10, p. 118-121), https://hbr.org/2015/10/collaborating-with-creative-peers

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3. Bending the Teaching Quality Curve Toward Greater Effectiveness

            In this Journal of Staff Development article, Kim Marshall says that three “hard truths” have gradually come into focus:

• First, within each school, there is a bell-shaped curve of teaching quality, from highly effective with students to mostly unsuccessful. There are variations from place to place and year to year, says Marshall, but “teaching variability is a reality everywhere, from struggling inner-city schools to expensive prep schools.”

• Second, less-effective teaching practices have a disproportionately negative impact on students who enter school with disadvantages. For them, says Marshall, “mediocre and ineffective teaching is like a stuck parking brake on normal progress.” The quality of teaching, therefore, can either widen or narrow the achievement gap.

• Third, it’s really difficult for a school to shift this bell-shaped curve to the right – to increase the amount of effective teaching and reduce or eliminate mediocre and poor teaching.

Why do we have such variability in teaching quality? Marshall believes it’s because over the last few decades, the ways we’ve tried to improve teaching have been poorly conceived. Here are some practices that have been implemented or proposed:

-   Hire good teachers and leave them alone.

-   Mandate scripted, “teacher-proof” curriculum materials.

-   Require teachers to turn in lesson plans a week ahead and inspect them all.

-   Conduct a once-or-twice-a-year pre-observation conference, full-lesson observation, detailed write-up, and post-conference. “It’s laughable to think that evaluating one or two classes, often atypical lessons put on for the administrator’s benefit, can significantly improve a teacher’s performance,” says Marshall.

-   Hire more administrators and conduct more-frequent classroom visits (this is too expensive for almost all public schools).

-   Bring in outside evaluators to second-guess principals.

-   Rate teachers using electronic checklists during classroom visits and/or rubrics afterward. “This provides a false sense of precision about teaching,” says Marshall, “prevents supervisors from being thoughtful observers in classrooms…, and short-circuits thoughtful coaching conversations.”

-   Conduct once-a-year surprise videotaping to capture what’s really happening.

-   Install cameras in all classrooms to monitor instruction continuously.

-   Have teachers submit videos of their best lessons.

-   Have teachers submit voluminous binders of “evidence.”

-   Use value-added analysis of student test scores to rate teachers (researchers are virtually unanimous that VAM is not accurate enough for high-stakes decisions).

-   Reward the best teachers with merit pay.

“What all these practices have in common is that they are high-stakes and seem to spring from the assumption that teachers are doing bad things that need to be caught and punished,” says Marshall. They focus on evidence, evaluation, and compliance rather than actually improving teaching and learning. In other words, they aren’t the best way to push the teaching curve in the right direction.

            So how can school leaders carry out the most important part of their job – getting more good teaching in more classrooms more of the time? Marshall says we need only look at what our best schools are already doing. Research and anecdotal evidence point to five factors:

            • Professional working conditions – This means a sense of purpose and possibility, a positive culture among students and parents, and the support, materials, and guidance that allow teachers to teach the curriculum well. A key element: common planning time so same-grade and same-subject teachers can meet regularly.

            • Teacher teamwork – Teams need structure, support, and monitoring as they backwards-plan curriculum units, analyze interim assessment results and student work, confront what’s not working, experiment, and continuously improve.

            • Coaching teachers – Marshall advocates flipping the traditional model for classroom visits (announced, infrequent, full-length, followed by lengthy write-ups) to unannounced, frequent, short observations followed promptly by face-to-face coaching focused on affirmations and a key leverage point for improvement (with a short written narrative afterward).

            • Student surveys – Kids of all ages can provide very helpful feedback for teachers if they’re asked well-framed questions in the right setting. But Marshall believes that using data from student surveys as part of teacher evaluation is highly problematic. With high stakes, there’s the risk of teachers pressuring students to give them good reviews, students giving low ratings to demanding teachers and high ratings to “nice” teachers, and teachers dialing back on rigor and expectations to make themselves more popular. Better to conduct low-stakes surveys twice a year and have each teacher and supervisor look at the results together and consider three questions: What’s affirming? What’s surprising? And what are one or two things that could be improved based on the feedback?

            • Hiring and firing well – “My biggest regret from my years as a principal,” says Marshall, “was when I rushed to make a last-minute hiring decision rather than persisting until we found the right person – and when I cut corners on calling references or didn’t push previous employers to give the full story.” Equally important is dismissing persistently ineffective teachers (after lots of support, tough-love feedback, and opportunities to improve). Superintendents need to have their principals’ backs, and many states also need a more-streamlined process, says Marshall, “to expedite the departure of teachers who aren’t getting better and are harming children’s life chances every day.”

            Does it take superhuman talent and energy to implement these five levers? Cynics say this kind of leadership is too challenging and the focus should be on “principal-proofing” the process. Marshall doesn’t buy that argument. “In fact,” he says, “I believe it’s an insult to almost all school leaders. The failure of most principals to bend the teaching quality curve is not due to a lack of innate ability but the result of ineffective policies they’ve been required to follow. I believe that with the right structures and support, principals can bring about major improvements in teaching quality… [M]ost of the work of improving teaching is changing workplace dynamics so that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. Our children deserve no less.”

 

“How Principals Can Reshape the Teaching Bell Curve” by Kim Marshall in Journal of Staff Development, August 2015 (Vol. 36, #4, p. 34-37), http://bit.ly/1Kj25uK

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4. Shifting Students from a Fixed to a Growth Mindset in Math

            In this article in Education Week, Evie Blad reports on how students’ mindsets can have a direct impact on achievement in mathematics. “A blend of family attitudes, cultural ideas, and frustration often leads students to believe that math ability is a fixed trait like eye color,” she says. “They believe they are either born with the skills necessary to succeed in math class or they’re not.” Researchers say teachers can attack this deep-seated problem in three ways:

            • Explicitly teaching the growth mindset. Students need to be told repeatedly that math is no more difficult than other subjects, that mistakes are a normal part of learning, and that they haven’t failed if they can’t quickly solve a problem using a prescribed algorithm. Stanford University’s Project for Education Research That Scales (PERTS) has released a series of online courses about mindset for teachers and parents with videos, exercises, and sample lesson plans (https://www.mindsetkit.org). A key mindset-shifting concept is that if something feels hard, that’s a sweet spot for learning, and persevering through the difficult part will yield big gains. “When you just focus on getting to the answer,” says Palo Alto teacher Mari Montoy-Wilson, “you really rob kids of grappling and working on that sweet spot. You don’t want to scaffold or carry the load too heavily for your kids.”

            • Teaching math differently. An essential companion to weaning students from the fixed mindset is presenting problems in a way that develops conceptual understanding versus speedy solving of problems using memorized algorithms. This dovetails nicely with the Common Core emphasis on sense-making, abstract reasoning, developing strategies to use math concepts, and critiquing others’ reasoning. This kind of math helps students escape the I-got-it-wrong-and-therefore-I’m dumb-at-math syndrome and prepares them for success in the upper grades – as well as for using math in their everyday lives. An example: a traditional perimeter problem asks students to find the perimeter of a rectangle 10 inches long and 6 inches wide. A conceptual problem asks students to draw two rectangles that have a perimeter of 32 inches and explain how they arrived at their answer. Another “open” problem for high-school students: figure out how many baseballs it would take to fill a classroom. Mariel Triggs, a San Francisco teacher who has used this problem, says, “I get these students and they will say, ‘I am not good at math,’ and I began to realize that what they were really saying was, ‘I don’t know how to do the problem in front of me.’ I frame it like a fun puzzle.”

            • Teachers exploring their own mindsets. “Teachers love the idea of mindsets as almost a panacea,” says University of Texas professor Philip Uri Treisman, “but they themselves have very fixed ideas of their own learning.” Many learned math the traditional way and need support to shift to a more conceptual approach. Teachers should practice their own sense-making and model it for their students. If math were music, says Treisman, the traditional approach would be learning scales and the new approach would be playing songs.

 

“Teachers Nurture Growth Mindset in Math” by Evie Blad in Education Week, September 9, 2015 (Vol. 35, #3, p. 1, 10-11), www.edweek.org

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5. How Teachers Can Balance Discipline with Caring and Passion

(Originally titled “Rules and Relationships: Which Comes First?”)

            In this article in Education Update, editor Sarah McKibben says that many beginning teachers wonder which comes first, building positive relationships or establishing law and order. In fact, says Rider University teacher trainer Tracey Garrett, “developing rules and routines – which is essential to creating order – is actually a caring thing to do.” Garrett believes that in the opening weeks of school, teachers need a full-court press combining these two – connecting with students and showing a willingness to hold one’s ground. Here’s every teacher’s to-do list:

-   Organize the physical environment;

-   Create rules and routines;

-   Develop relationships;

-   Implement engaging instruction;

-   Handle discipline challenges.

Behind all this must be a vibe of inner authority, says author Rick Smith – outward confidence, “withitness,” consistency, fairness, and positive assumptions about students – all conveyed through body language, posture, and tone. The opposite of this is a vibe of inner apology – “Class, it’s kind of noisy, OK, so, um, can we maybe try to do something different?” The inner authority teacher would say, “Class, things are getting too noisy, so we’re going to do something different.”

            Teacher/author Otis Kriegel recommends that teachers announce the routines (how we get students’ attention, how students get the teacher’s attention, how to get a bathroom pass, etc.) and then work collaboratively with students to shape classroom rules. Routines provide direction about how to accomplish simple tasks, he says, while rules are about preventing unwanted behaviors. Having students generate rules has to be an authentic process, says Kriegel – brainstorming ideas, eliminating duplication, and reaching consensus on a code of conduct that will create a safe and productive classroom.

            When students test the limits, as some inevitably will, it’s important to be clear but also to listen, and be consistent without being robotic. Sometimes routines and rules need to be amended – they are “a living, breathing classroom constitution,” says Kriegel. “We look at it, develop it, agree on it, and then revisit it. We ask, is this still working in November?”

            For middle- and high-school students, the first day of school can be pretty dreary, traipsing from class to class hearing the rules and routines from one teacher after another. Safety and order are important, but students, elementary and secondary, also need to come away from opening day with a clear sense of their teachers’ passion and enthusiasm and a tantalizing preview of what they’ll be learning. At the beginning of every year, says Garrett, students “make a conscious decision whether to behave or misbehave, and the number one factor they [base] that decision on is whether they connect with their teacher.” Students aren’t looking for a friend, but they want teachers who are friendly, caring, and will teach them important stuff.

 

“Rules and Relationships: Which Comes First?” by Sarah McKibben in Education Update, September 2015 (Vol. 57, #9, p. 2-3, 6), available for purchase at http://bit.ly/1NyPRFf; McKibben can be reached at [email protected].

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6. Ways to Handle Difficult Conversations

            In this article in Psychology Today, Jacquie Itsines reports on ways to handle potentially angry disagreements so they won’t spiral out of control. Here are some tips from University of Wisconsin/Green Bay researcher Ryan Martin:

            • Accuse carefully. Rather than saying, “You’re so insensitive,” Martin recommends saying, “What you just said was insensitive” and then explaining why. The key is avoiding a personal attack and focusing on the specific remark or behavior that’s touched a raw nerve.

            • Turn down the volume. As people get angry, they tend to speak louder and more quickly, with each matching the other’s volume and pace. By making a conscious effort to speak more quietly and slowly, you can help lower the emotional level, or at least keep it from escalating.

            • Hold up a mirror. Asking “Does that sound fair?” or a similar question that gets the other person to reflect about what’s just been said can be an effective way to regain control of a difficult conversation, says author Preston Ni. It also buys a little extra time for you to reflect on how to navigate to a successful outcome.

            • Step away and calm down. If you feel you might be about to say something inflammatory, hit the pause button. During the break, don’t obsess. Instead, regroup, regain your composure, and continue the conversation when you have strategies that will lead to a satisfactory resolution.

 

“Fight Nice” by Jacquie Itsines in Psychology Today, September/October 2015 (Vol. 48, #5, p. 17), no e-link available

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7. Staying on Task in a World of Distractions

            In this Psychology Today article, Matt Huston taps four experts for advice on how to deal with the myriad temptations that pull us away from serious work:

            • Find a secluded place. This might be a café, a quiet corner of the library, an empty classroom where there will be fewer enticing interruptions. “You can nip a bad impulse in the bud by intervening earlier rather than later,” says Angela Duckworth, a University of Pennsylvania expert on goal achievement.

            • Temporarily tuning out the digital world. According to Michael Ent (Florida State University), people who score high on self-control take steps to screen out potential distractions when they’re working. This means closing extra computer programs and chat windows, turning off the phone, and using earplugs or ear-buds.

            • Hang out with the right people. Some of those we socialize with can pull us away from our goals, while others can support and reinforce them. A paper in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin says that effective self-regulators engage in “social positioning” – they schmooze with people who can help them pursue their vision.

            • Envision the future. “Your planning horizon has to be longer than 97 milliseconds,” says Daniel Bartels of the University of Chicago. He believes that wise decision-makers consider the future costs and benefits of their actions. It’s a good idea to list (a) what you give up in the future by slacking off now, and (b) essential parts of you that want to remain the same in a year or more.

 

“Distraction 101” by Matt Huston in Psychology Today, September/October 2015 (Vol. 48, #5, p. 19), no e-link available

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8. Consumer Information on K-8 Math Textbooks

            In this Kappan article, Leland Cogan, Nathan Burroughs, and William Schmidt (Michigan State University) describe the Textbook Navigator, a web-based platform with detailed information on the Common Core alignment of all major published U.S. textbooks. The bottom line:

-   Many K-8 textbooks skip one-quarter of required math topics.

-   Only half of a typical K-8 textbook focuses on grade-appropriate math.

-   If teachers faithfully implement one of the most poorly-aligned textbooks, their students will spend as much as 13 weeks of the year on extraneous material.

-   Newer K-8 math books’ Common Core coverage is better but not good enough.

-   Misalignment of K-8 math books to Common Core creates unequal learning opportunities, often to the detriment of less-advantaged students.

The Navigator service is a very helpful tool for educators working to teach the appropriate math curriculum and the right level of rigor. To access the service, use a Chrome or Safari browser to go to http://education.msu.edu/csc and click on the Textbook Navigator link.

 

“Supporting Classroom Instruction: The Textbook Navigator/Journal” by Leland Cogan, Nathan Burroughs, and William Schmidt in Phi Delta Kappan, September 2015 (Vol. 97, #1, p. 29-33), available for purchase at www.kappanmagazine.org; Cogan can be reached at [email protected].

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9. Short Items:

            a. The Kappan/Gallup Poll – This year’s poll of the public’s attitudes toward public schools is available at http://pdkpoll.org, along with commentary and an opportunity to give input.

 

“The 47^th Annual PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools” in Phi Delta Kappan, September 2015 (Vol. 97, #1, p. K1-K32)

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            b. Global news online – This School Library Journal article recommends five websites that provide free up-to-the-minute news from around the world:

-   Global Voices – http://globalvoicesonline.org - Written, translated, and curated by more than 800 citizen journalists and media experts, searchable by topic or region, 43 languages

-   Newsmap – http://newsmap.jp - Real-time, trending news in 15 countries, color-coded by topic and adjustable by how much detail you want

-   TV News Archive – http://archive.org/details/tv - Televised news clips from over 700,000 shows from 2009 to the present

-   Al-Monitor - www.al-monitor.com/pulse/home.html - News about the Middle East translated into English from Hebrew, Turkish, Persian, and Arabic

-   AllAfrica - http://allafrica.com - Aggregated news from over 130 African news outlets and content from AllAfrica reporters.

 

“Five Resources for Global News” in School Library Journal, September 2015 (Vol. 61, #9, p. 19)

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