What are you Willing to do to Help your Students Succeed?
I had always wanted to cage-dive with sharks. The thought of getting up close and personal with these magnificent, yet dangerous creatures of the sea appealed to me. I would watch cage-diving on television and I’d think to myself, “I want to do that.” Then, as often happens in life, the opportunity to hop in a cage and face the sharks came my way. Suddenly I was challenged with a decision. On the one hand, I really wanted to dive with the sharks, but I also had to decide if I was actually willing to get in the cage and do it!
There are lots of things we want in life, but unfortunately, wanting something is only the first step to achieving those wants. The second and more important step is deciding what you are willing to do in order to get what you want. Take a diet for example. Plenty of us want to eat healthier, but how many of us are willing to order salad in a restaurant rather than burgers and fries? Or what about exercise? We want to be more fit, but are we willing to make the lifestyle changes required to fit a workout into our day? Our problem is less about discovering what we want, and more about deciding what we are willing to do to get the outcome
we desire.
So here is the question: What do you want for your learners or for your school?
And here is the even bigger question: What are you willing to do (or not do?) to ensure that you get what you want?
I ask the second question because I know that often, the biggest thing that gets in
the way of change is success from the past. As teachers, the approaches we take
are generally based on what has worked well before. As our society changes, as
technology begins to change not only the way we do things, but our expectations
about how things happen, we have to be willing to put aside our successful practices of the past and be willing to co-design new strategies with our learners.
We co-design because the model requires us to truly understand the needs of our
learners, and then continue to involve them throughout the solution process. My
observation is that too often teachers talk to students about what is happening or they look at assessment results, and then come up with the ‘right’ solution simply because it has worked for them before that time. I am not suggesting that we shouldn’t bring our professional knowledge and experience to finding solutions, but I am suggesting that we will be more successful if we continue to engage learners throughout the solution process.
Think of that student in your class who, despite having years of help and support,
is still not a fluent reader. What do you do? Try to find time each day to hear them read one-on-one? Convince your SENCO to put them onto a special programme? Set up a peer tutoring programme for them? All of these things are good to do, but they may not be what this student needs. Here is a different approach:
1. Sit down with the student and ask them to tell you about what it is like for them
at school. Ask them about times when a teacher has really helped them. Ask them what they don’t like about school. Ask them if they could design the perfect school day, what would it look like? This is not a prescriptive set of questions. You can make them up as you go, but what you are trying to uncover is this student’s real needs
2. On your own, make a list of all the needs you heard your student tell you. Then,
using your knowledge and experience, come up with a solution that you think might meet their needs.
3. Create a prototype of your solution that you can share with the student. It might be a fl ow chart, a story board or an action plan. It needs to be a tangible solution that the student can understand.
4. Go back to the student and share your solution prototype with them, inviting
them to give you feedback. Build their feedback into your solution (This is where the ‘what are you willing to do or not do’ comes into play!) Then, go back to the student again to check that your redesign is actually what they were suggesting. Keep doing this until you are both satisfied with the solution
5. Deploy the solution, continuing to seek feedback along the way.
I remember years ago that I stumbled across a great strategy to teach Year 5-6 students how to punctuate direct speech. It involved collaborative story-writing in different coloured crayons. For some reason, with that group of learners, it worked and they all left my classroom with great punctuation skills! I tried it the next year, and the next, but I never experienced the same impact as I had the first time I did it. Looking back, I realise I hung onto that strategy way longer than I should have simply because it had been so successful the first time. I learned just because something works with one group of learners, it is not guaranteed it will
work with the next. This is where co-design becomes a powerful tool.
etting back to my great whites, I realised that I wasn’t getting any younger and that if I really did want to dive with the great whites, I had to make a plan. I had to be willing to book my place on a trip, be willing to hop on the boat, be willing to put on my wetsuit and mask and be willing to be lowered into the cage. I did end up diving with them and it was awesome. Knowing what you’re willing to do with your students to help them reach their goals will be just as awesome.