Supporting Students to Ask More Questions May Narrow the Achievement Gap→

Lory Hough, writing for Harvard Ed. Magazine describes the finding of a study following 103 children aged 5 to 7 as they participated in a series of virtual science lessons, with one group being encouraged to ask questions and the other to listen carefully. The study aimed to determine whether encouraging children to ask questions or listen carefully would lead to greater learning and curiosity. Unshockingly, it did.

Furthermore, practice with question-asking was more beneficial for children with lower baseline knowledge, suggesting that question-asking shows promise for enhancing children’s motivation to learn and equalizing academic disparities.

Honestly, it's frustrating that we're still having this conversation: student-centered learning should not be a novel concept in 2023. And yet, there are still those who believe that this approach only “works” in advanced classes, or that it doesn't work for all students. This could not be further from the truth.

Student Thinking vs. Student Engagement→

If I were developing a school leadership curriculum for new principals, this article in ASCD, by Jim Heal and Bryan Goodwin, would be required reading for the first day.

But there's another form of engagement that's all too common in many classrooms that cuts against these definitions: the illusion of engagement. Students may appear engaged—creating ornate dioramas, glitzy posters, exploding volcanos, or other "busy" projects, for example—but ultimately, they do very little actual learning or thinking about their learning.

Deep learning occurs when students are given the opportunity to answer authentic, challenging, and thought-provoking questions, and are invited to share their thought processes aloud. However, this kind of teaching is not easy. It requires content knowledge, skill, and flexibility to adapt to students' needs, as well as a significant amount of tenacity to resist students' attempts to do the minimum amount of work required for a passing grade.

Principals have a critical role to play in building a professional culture that promotes collaboration and problem-solving among teachers, while also keeping expectations for students and staff high. This is essential for creating an environment that supports teachers in their efforts to promote deep learning and meaningful engagement among their students.

Spinning Our Wheels→

Frederick M. Hess, writing for ASCD:

"There's a familiar "spinning wheels" aspect to school reform that can make it tough for any proposed change to actually stick. But this post-pandemic era, with its new landscape, could be a moment of punctuated equilibrium rather than another spin of the wheel.

Rising to that challenge requires leaders to find more promising ways to support students, confront learning loss, and effectively use billions in emergency federal aid."

Hess lists an approach to rethinking education that involves leading inquiry with questions, being precise and specific about the problems being solved, being deliberate about the process and open to new solutions, and rejecting change for change’s sake.

While I appreciate his optimism and agree with his points, I think we’re unfortunately about to see another ”spin of the wheel” in most communities. The intertia of the status quo is strong, and the traditional structures and processes in education have been in place for a long time. Those who have benefited from the way things are will naturally resist any changes that threaten their advantages, regardless of how beneficial those changes may be for the larger community.

Leaders who are pushing for change, particularly in light of the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, must be willing to put themselves out there and take a bold stance. This often means going against the status quo and facing resistance, even when the leaders, themselves, may be among those benefiting from the way things are.

To overcome these challenges, leaders must be proactive in forming coalitions that can help drive change. By working together with like-minded individuals and organizations, leaders can help insulate themselves against attacks and criticism, and build a strong foundation for change.

Building Strong School Culture with Crew at Handy Middle School

This video features the impact of Crew, as shared by the students and teachers at Handy Middle School. They discuss the improvements they have seen, including increased confidence, better communication, stronger bonds, and a more connected community.

Crew is a unique combination of advisory class and ethos that aims to create a supportive and grounding environment for students as they start each day. During the first 30 minutes of every day, teachers focus on lessons that emphasize social-emotional skills and character-building activities. During these lessons, students reflect on essential skills such as communication, collaboration, and leadership, while also building relationships with their classmates and teachers. The lessons learned in Crew are then practiced throughout the day.

The impact of Crew extends beyond the students to the staff as well. Staff crew meetings provide a space for team building and decompression, allowing staff members to connect, support each other, and refocus on their work.

Creating and maintaining a positive school culture is a challenging but essential task for any principal. That's why I was thrilled to partner with EL Education on the pilot of their middle school Crew curriculum at Handy Middle School. Our goal was to provide the school redesign team with a framework and necessary support to achieve this objective.

This video celebrates the transformative impact of empowerment and the importance of fostering a strong school culture. The use of student and teacher voices to share their experiences highlights the positive impact of Crew and the success it has had in the school community.

Making Dumb Groups Smarter→

Cass R. Sunstein and Reid Hastie writing for the Harvard Business Review:

A smaller but nonetheless substantial body of research—some of it our own—has focused on the decision-making strengths and weaknesses of groups and teams. But little of this work has trickled into the public consciousness, and it has yet to have a noticeable effect on actual practice. It’s time for that to change. We aim to bring behavioral research into direct contact with the question of group performance—to describe the main ways in which groups go astray and to offer some simple suggestions for improvement.

Here are a few takeaways for anyone who frequently facilitates group decision-making:

1. Keep your opinion to yourself, especially at the start, if you are interested in soliciting diverse opinions from the group.
2. Be clear of a problem-solving or critical-thinking outcome (rather than one of group cohesion or collegiality) by emphasizing a need for information disclosure.
3. Emphasize the importance and implications of the group's decision and de-emphasize any apparent gain from individual contributions.
4. Disclose roles by telling the group who is at the table and why.
5. For groups that may otherwise be too similar in their opinions, assign a devil's advocate. Be wary of this excercise, however as it can become little more than a game.
6. For high-stakes decision-making, construct a "Red Team:" a group of individuals who were not part of the original team brought together For the purpose of finding mistakes and exploit vulnerabilities in the plan.

Owning It

I’ve long been obsessed with the idea of personal ownership. For me, the degree to which I achieve my goals is closely tied to the degree to which I own every step of the path toward achieving them. The more ownership I take, the more likely I am to see my desired outcomes.

I find this to be true for collaborative work I am involved in as well. The success of my team is dependent upon each individual’s capacity to own both the steps they have been delegated, and the steps that have been delegated to others. Without such collective ownership, the goals of the group are less likely to be acheived.

Owning the work of others is to support them in the completion of their tasks. Sometimes this looks like staying out of their way. Other times, this looks like providing a helping hand.

Owning it requires doing whatever it takes until the goal is achieved.