thesisthoughts

Yesterday on the way to Z I had time to stop at a coffee shop for a break. I knew I would have time to do some work so I brought a book on teaching writing and my notebook for free writing. When my sandwich and coffee arrived I had to decide what I would do. I decided to free write on a topic worrying me at the moment and as a result made a decision which turned out to be an important one.

I wrote:

“I have been thinking a lot about cutting the course down from 60 hours to 30 hours. I can see myself making a lot of mistakes. At the moment it is irrelevant that I don’t agree with the cut in hours or that I am frustrated that I had no say in the matter. What is relevant now is how I choose to use those 30 hours available to me and I how I make them significant enough for the teachers to come back for more.

I must be wary of trying to pack too much into too little time. What I can see happening is me racing through the “material” and not letting the teachers talk, collaborate on and process what is being learned. Slow down should be my message to myself. Giving the teachers time to discuss what they have been doing in the classroom since the last session is not a waste of time – it is reflection, it is socially processing the new knowledge.

If each teacher presents her peers with a short oral narrative on something she is doing in her classroom or reflects aloud on questions she is dealing with, these must be seen as real learning activities.

I believe that in this way, the teacher participants will be more active in their learning, they will be taking responsibility for putting new knowledge into practice. They will possibly be made more aware of their learning.

last year at K there were a few teachers who complained that the course was too theoretical. They weren’t actively involved and didn’t understand that the activities and strategies presented could and should be explored in the classroom. If I had given 10 minutes at the beginning of each session for discussion in small groups, they would have heard what their peers were experiencing.”

When I finished my free writing (and my snack), I made a decision to change the timetable for the session.  I really had planned too much. After the session I was convinced that I had made the right decision. The discussions and the writing exercises really were essential.

This decision will mean that that there will be topics I don’t touch this year but tht is realistic when I remember that I only have 30 hours…

 Image: http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=240700

Yesterday afternoon I set off for my long drive to Z. I was very excited to meet my new group, and hoped that we would get off to a good start. There were supposed to be 28 in the group but only 22 turned up for the first session.

The staff at the centre were waiting for me and the room and the technology were all fine. As soon as I had my computer set up, teachers started arriving.

This group is different from others I have worked with in that 90% of the teachers are from a very religious backgrounds and they teach in very religious schools. It will be interesting to see how they bring their school experiences to the sessions and to learn from them about their environment. I must ask them about their Internet access – often these families have limited Internet experience and facilities.

The room was set up with tables and chairs all facing the front in a horseshoe and I didn’t move them yesterday. I will definitely set them up differently next time, in order to promote small group discussion. As a result, the first meeting was more lecture style than I would have liked.

One of the conclusions I reached after last year was that I have to be more direct in explaining to the teachers what hey can take to the classroom and what my expectations are of them between sessions. Last year I encouraged them to take as much of their learning as possible to the classroom, but not all of the teachers understood the links. Those that did understand and tried the big and the little strategies and tools in the classroom, got a lot more from the learning experience. Yesterday I was very specific: “This is an important question to ask your students”, “Did you notice that I gave you all very small pieces of paper? This is so… In the classroom…”, “In the next two weeks, until we meet again, fill in this table which will help you examine what is happening in your classroom…”.

I am extremely frustrated that the Department of Education decided to cut all courses down from the compulsory 60 hours from last year to 30 hours this year. Instead of all teachers learning one 60 hour course, they are required to choose two different 30 hour courses. What can you do and learn in 30 hours? It isn’t enough to form any kind of learning community, especially when there are 25-30 teachers in the group. In my mind I have made a decision: rather than complain about it all the time, I will see this course as part A in a series. If it’s good they’ll come back for more.

It is frustrating that the desicion makers ”up above” don’t listen to the teachers’ feedback (which said that the 60 hours facilitates deeper, more relevant learning) or current research on professional learning (sustained, ongoing…)

I suppose I shouldn’t complain, I believe that in the US, 16 hours is considered a long course.

Next week I will do the same program with another new group, they are located at K.

I have just finished reading one of the second hand books I bought from Better World Books.

15 minutes free writing:

I was surprised to find this book in the catalogue and even more surprised when I began reading it. This narrative was written ten years ago but very much reflects the type of work I am doing and the type of texts I am producing. 

Miller Power works (worked?) with students learning to be teachers and writing teachers and taught them methodology through writing. Her course was based on the students reflecting and writing narratives and on the author responding at length to the stories which appeared in journals and assignments.

I quickly connected to Miller Power’s style and chose to read this book without pencil in hand, something I rarely do. There was something about the name of the book and the opening texts which signalled to me that this short book would be read and reread by me.

There are a variety of texts in the book, many written by students.

Some of the important messages for me at this stage are:

• Somebody else wrote of her experiences teaching writing teachers to write. There are many more texts out there waiting for me to discover them.
• It is extremely interesting to read narratives of someone else’s work, somewhere else in a different context. Many details are different but many of the dilemmas, difficulties and triumphs are similar.
• Jumping to conclusions about students or teachers is a terrible mistake. listening is the only real way to avoid it. (It relates to my conclusion that I must spend much more time and effort getting to know the teachers and for them to gain trust in each other, early on in the course).
• Very often personal narratives which seem unrelated at first glance, turn out to be very relevant to teaching writing.
• The view that writing is a born trait is more common than I thought it was.
• A short course, CAN make a difference, though not always.
• Our own experiences can and should be utilized in our teaching.

I promise there will be more…

Miller Power, B. (1997). Long roads, short distances: Teaching writing and writing teachers.Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Freewriting 4 -

Well, it is already Tuesday morning and I am up early ready to reflect on my last meeting at K.

As soon as I arrived, two teachers waited for me and extremely politely apologised for their rude behaviour last time. They admitted that although the materials are interesting, they allowed themselves to disconnect and to make lots of noise. The remarked that they were aware of my frustration towards the end of the lesson. Of course I thanked them but told them that I had already decided to make the lessons far more practical and more active. I explained that I am well aware of the difficulty in coming to a four hour lesson, straight after an exhausting day at school.

Before I began, another of their colleagues from school asked to have a few words with all of the participants. From her look I could see that it wasn’t going to be pleasant. In the end we had the discussion she was waiting for before the break and didn’t open the meeting with it.

The first hour or so of the meeting I did differently – I involved the teachers more and lowered my expectations for the material we would cover. There was a friendly, interested atmposphere in the room. Another thing I did was to tell them my expectations more explicitly: “I expect you to take this rubric as an example and go back to school with it. Find a group of teachers and experience building something similar, for your own students, according to your own needs…”

The discussion that teacher wanted to lead was that the course is boring, that she (and all the others, of course) is interested in practical easy solutions to the problems that she faces in the everyday classroom. Theory doesn’t interest her, she wants to learn very simply and quickly what to do in class that will change her students’ attitude and achievement levels in writing.

Of course there are no simple answers and recipes in teaching writing. Writing, in itself, is a complex process. She spoke the whole time in “the royal we” and I was happy that at least a few others took the opportunity to tell her that they see it differently.

“I haven’t received anything I can take back to my classroom in all the meetings we’ve had” she remarked. Others talked about the value of the course, what they have learned, what they HAVE done in their classrooms and the following results.

I explained that maybe I should have given a “try this in your classroom this week” list at the end of each session. I gave several examples of practices which could (and should) already have been tried in the classroom). I understand that my underlying understanding that the teachers are intelligent and motivated and will certainly sift through the experiences, simulations, models and activities, in order to decide what is suitable for their own classrooms. In reality, at least one of the participants was waiting all this time for me to hand out a recipe book or maybe a hand-full of worksheets. I don’t work that way…

Another issue that needs thinking here is what happens when a teacher holds such narrow understandings of learning?

Just a thought I had while responding to the teachers in the course in the online forum…

As I read each and every teacher’s narrative and reflection, think of a significant response and pose a relevant question, I am aware that I, myself, am engaging in extremely intensive professional learning. Would this be the same for classroom teachers responding to students’ work if they would consider this as learning and not just a drag?

This afternoon I drove two hoursto give session number 4 at K. I arrived and got myself organised and we even started on time. About two minutes after I put the title of our seminar on the screen, there was a power failure in the whole neighborhood. The next hour was spent in semi darkness. I gave the first part of the seminar as a lecture, doing quite well without my notes and my powerpoint presentation. When the teachers couldn’t see the whiteboard or their own notebooks any more I sent them home. To make up the rest of the hours they will write something reflective about the process they went through when they wrote their first narrative.

More reading and responding just around the corner…

Free Image: http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=264246

Last Sunday was the second meeting of the course at N. I began the meeting by requesting that the teachers write for five minutes about themselves as writers. I threw a few questions in the air like “What do you you write and when?” or “How do you feel about writing?” and left them to it. To my surprise, the few that arrived on time began writing without objection. Again I was aware of how long five minutes are when you are actually engaged in text composition. I stopped them before they finished and was sorry that I had not dared to ask for ten minutes. I wrote together with them.

The discussion afterwards centered around their reaction to the task, directions which emerged during writing and the place place of “real writing” in their lives. One of the teachers volunteered to read her piece to the group. One of the participants was surprised to realize that she hadn’t written anything personal for years. She said “I write all the time but it is only work related technical writing, nothing that is really personal”.

Afterwards I brought texts which grade six pupils had written on the same topic “I am a writer”. They were surprised to see that children can write reflective texts and that they know so much about what helps and hinders the writing process.

My lecture on “A new framework for understanding cognition and affect in writing” / Hayes* went well and lively discussion followed. Many questions were asked, some of them I promised would be answered in the next few meetings.

Towards the end of the session we talked about narrative and the benefits of writing and discussing teaching stories. I explained that our next meeting would not be face to face, it will be on the virtual campus. I presented the task that they will be required to fulfill there.

Yesterday I visited the classroom of one of the course participants. As we discussed her work she mentioned that the process she is undergoing with her pupils at the moment is the one she has chosen to write about in her narrative. I got the impression that the very fact that she knows that she will be writing about her work in this unit is influencing the way she works with her students and directs their learning. This is a question worth thinking and talking about.

 *Hayes, J. R. (2000). A new framework for understanding cognition and affect in writing. In R. Indrisano, & J. R. Squire (Eds.), Perspectives on writing: Research, theory, and practice (pp. 6-44). Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association.

Today I reread the first chapter of Doecke and Parr and was surprised that the notes I had made previously didn’t make the blog or the methodology chapter.

Points I will add are:

• Through writing teachers can explore their professional lives and “refine their understandings of the complexities of teaching and learning” (p. 9).
• “This is obviously of benefit to the students in their classes, although those benefits do not necessarily translate into tangible outcomes that can be easily measured” (p. 9).
• “… qualities that teachers value most in their students’ learning-intellectual curiosity, a willingness to engage in exploratory talk, imagination, a preparedness to collaborate while also accepting a degree of autonomy, a capacity to engage in metacognition and reflexivity-are the very same qualities that characterize their own professional learning. Teachers who engage in practitioner inquiry are much more likely to be able to generate a ‘culture of inquiry’ in their own classrooms” (Reid 2004, p. 12 as cited here p. 12).
•  writing 3 fold: writing as artefact, writing as process, writing as medium – see p. 13. I can link the writing in my thesis to these concepts.

Doecke, B., & Parr, G. (2005). Writing: A common project. In B. Doecke, & G. Parr (Eds.), Writing = Learning (pp. 1-16). South Australia: Wakefield Press.

While writing this thesis I was running a professional development program for teachers of grades two to six. The name of the twenty eight hour course was “Improving Literacy in a Heterogeneous Class”. The teachers voluntarily signed up.  I began the course by asking the fourteen teachers participating to fill in a questionnaire about themselves, their teaching experience and their expectations of the course. I included a list of possible topics and asked them to mark those most relevant and important to them. I was not surprised to find that the most pressing topic for all of the participants was the teaching of writing and supporting struggling writers.  I opened the third meeting by asking the teachers to write for ten minutes in silence, the topic being an experience they have had teaching writing. I told them that we would be discussing those pieces after the writing period was over.  One teacher immediately left the room, a toilet or coffee break I assumed. Another took out her cell phone and began clicking furiously. Others doodled quietly in their notebooks, began listing points or began to fill lines with Hebrew script.  I sat and watched them, uncomfortable with the squirming that was going on in several of the seats. Each minute that went past was like five, my watch didn’t seem to move. I forced myself to wait ten minutes, resisting my urge to cut the time down to seven or eight minutes.  Silence was kept in the room for most of the time, although occasionally there were embarrassed giggles or a whisper.  When the time was up, some of the teachers were still busily writing their narratives and were sorry to stop. Others looked relieved and were waiting to get on with the seminar.  In the discussion that followed I was interested in hearing what had happened to the participants in those ten minutes, what they had felt and what they had experienced and done in that time.  Many of the teachers commented that they are unused to writing on demand and that they felt uncomfortable. Some confessed that they are not used to writing at all. Several remarked that the time limit and the expectation of sharing their writing pressured them. At least two of the teachers didn’t write at all in the ten minute period. Only two or three confided that they enjoyed the writing experience.  We looked in detail at what had been done in that time and saw how the writing process is different for different people. Afterwards we discussed the implications for these differences in our classrooms. One of the teachers who didn’t write anything, an experienced grade six teacher, explained to the group that she isn’t a writer. “People are either born writers or they aren’t, I’m not” she said. The group discussed this statement. Is it true? If it is, what does it mean for the teaching of writing? I added that this is one of the major misconceptions held by struggling writers in our classes.  I asked the teachers if anyone was willing to share their text with us. Two of the first volunteers started to tell their story without looking at the page. I stopped them and reassured them that it is clear to everyone that this is the roughest of rough draft but that we want to hear what is on the paper.  Two of the pieces we heard were well structured, interesting stories. We were amazed by the writers’ style and clarity. At the end of the session I explained that our next meeting would not be face to face, that we would be meeting on the virtual campus. Each teacher was required to do three things, firstly to revise her story about the teaching of writing (or write another story) and to post it on the assigned private discussion board. The second task was to reflect on the teaching story and on the experience of writing one, I supplied possible directions for this. The third task was to read stories from other group members and respond.  It took ages and lots of encouragement for the first teacher to post a story. She wrote about a poetry anthology she had successfully produced at her school. The poems were all connected to Israel’s sixtieth birthday. This teacher told how she had created a poetry unit suitable for each different age group, chosen appropriate poetry to teach, and encouraged the children to write. Every child in the school had writing published in the festive booklet. She told her story modestly but proudly and expressed her personal excitement and satisfaction with the project. A few days after this story appeared, comments began to appear, most of them congratulating the teacher on her success in the project but also on being the first to contribute a story. Questions also appeared. Gradually a few other stories appeared on the site and the discussion was lively.  Unfortunately only five of the participants took part in the discussion. At our next meeting, I devoted time to the oral reading of those stories posted on the campus and gave those teachers time to share their experiences with the group. I was sure that my enthusiasm, together with showing the participants that it is possible to complete the task, would motivate the others to write and share their stories. A few weeks later, I am still waiting… Although I know that time is a central factor in any work I do with teachers, here I know that the type of task assigned was significant in the low rate of participation.  I am continually aware that these teachers have not been asked to write anything of this nature for a very long time, some of them since they were at school. Another factor is that in a twenty eight hour course many of the teachers do not know each other and may feel vulnerable as a result.  I have tasted this kind of work with teachers and find it far more meaningful than choosing a topic, planning a lecture or a workshop, giving them my knowledge or experience and going home.  When I read the stories written, I was greatly aware of what I have been learning, that every teacher has something to say, that each teacher possesses professional knowledge which can be a wonderful starting point for collaborative learning. S, a second year teacher, had been very quiet and reserved in the first two sessions. We discussed writing in the third meeting and I brought examples of authors talking about the writing process and about how laborious composition is. Suddenly, S shyly told the group that she keeps a personal diary and that because she lives alone she comes home and pours her day into writing. She confessed that writing is an important part of her day. The narrative S wrote and posted was written in very simple language but told a very powerful story of her battle to get her second grade pupils to write. She told us how she used to spend each Sunday morning hearing stories from her class about what they had done on the weekend. She was frustrated that it was always the same children who related experiences and that many remained silent. She told that it was difficult for many to choose just one experience to share.  One day, S gave her pupils special notebooks and told them that they were going to write what they wanted to share from their weekend and that afterwards those that want to can tell their story. She was shocked by the result. Firstly, everybody wrote, including those who usually don’t share and her struggling writers. Secondly, many more children were willing to tell their stories. S, excited by this lesson, decided to continue.  In the weeks that followed, S asked her pupils to write every Sunday morning and was happy that the children wrote willingly and that the texts produced were more and more complex. More and more pupils asked to share their work. As a result of the reflection S did when writing her narrative for our group, she started asking the class to write on other occasions, after recess for example. Another addition was that she herself started writing while her class was busy with their heads down. She used the time for reflective writing on teaching issues. In the weeks that followed, writing became an accepted mode of communication in S’s class. When children were involved in an argument or had a problem, she asked them to first organize their thoughts by writing them in the notebook and that afterwards she would be happy to listen to them. It worked. When S got to school after her day off, she would find a pile of notes waiting for her on her desk. Subject teachers who taught the class were surprised when they began to receive written communication from the young children.  S received positive feedback on her work from the members of our group and also heard ideas for continuing and expanding her work. I found it very satisfying that through this activity she realized that she has something significant to share with a group of experienced teachers. Many of the veteran teachers certainly had something to learn from this shy and nervous early career teacher. I realized that S was similar to her shyer pupils, those that only dared to share a story when they had it firmly on paper.  There is no tradition of composing teacher narratives and collaborating on them in this part of Israel. There are presently no formal options for professional learning through dialogic writing and discussion. Despite the fact that this small scale experience was only partly successful, I am optimistic that significant learning frameworks can be established for Israeli teachers in this direction.  In order to succeed, I believe teachers need to know ahead of time that this will be the framework of the seminar and that they know they will be committed to experience the writing and discussing of teacher narratives. A mix of experienced and early career teachers is likely to be preferable – building on the enthusiasm and burning need for collaboration amongst newer teachers and the experience and knowledge of veteran educators.  I have already taken the first few steps. I have surprisingly managed to convince the coordinator of language and literacy in the northern area of Israel, that this is the way we should be going in our PD for next year. Most of the courses we will be offering will deal with the teaching of writing and they will all be structured around teacher collaboration and the writing and sharing of narratives.  If we begin with a respect for the knowledge the teachers bring with them and their honest desire to raise the achievement levels of their pupils in writing, I hope they will sign up and then be open, flexible and active participants.

 Information from the Israeli Macam center