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…

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Yesterday I opened course number 2 for the present school year, close to home, at A. I heard, ahead of time, that they had closed the enrollment (at 30) because there were too many teachers but in fact there were only 26 in the group. I was so worried that there would be a large group that I planned the session a bit differently.

My main problem in planning the opening session was that I knew that a few of the teachers had been present when I did a session for DK last year in her course at the same centre. When I stood in for her and did some introductory activities and a lecture on writing, I knew I would have a problem if the same teachers enrolled in my course. On the one hand I knew the taste of the course would encourage them to enrol but on the other hand, I wouldn’t be able to return to the introductory activities.

The group is very different to that in Z in that many of these teachers have been in contact with me in the past. At least 3 have studied in my courses on inclusion and four are from my school. At least 10 others teach at schools in which my professional learning colleagues work.

I haven’t had time to read their questionnaires yet but it will be interesting. I particularly want to read why they chose this course.

When I arrived at the centre I saw something that worried me greatly. There were teachers standing in a line and the receptionist was handing them a big folder (binder) of pages advertising courses and the teachers were choosing according to categories like “Oh, for this one I don’t need to use a computer” or “Great, this one finishes by…”. Is that how educators should be choosing their professional learning? Is that what happens when teachers are coerced into taking two 30 hr courses in a year? I want to hope that nobody chose my course for those kinds of reasons.

When we got to the stage when I asked the teachers to try out “looping” there was all over agreement and cooperation. Maybe the timer I brought did the trick? I asked them to free write on the topic of “Difficulties in Teaching Writing”, a topic they can all relate to. I put the clock on for three minutes and asked them to write quietly without stopping. Then I asked them to stop, to circle the 5 most important words they had written. I then gave them another three minutes on the clock to continue writing, this time concentrating on those five central terms. Apart from the teacher who corrected maths exams throughout the whole session (3 hours!), they were all quiet and did quite a bit of writing.

This wider participation may have been due to several reasons:

• The teachers were trying out a strategy to be used in the classroom
• I wrote on the program for the course that teachers would be expected to write
• It is that kind of group…

I told them that the discussion on how they felt during the writing and how they reacted to the task would be in the virtual campus so I better set up the discussion group quickly. There is no doubt that I will find the 30 hour time limit frustrating. I need to be careful that it isn’t always the collaborative work and the discussions that I skip.

This week I have my second session at Z – I had a few email responses which were very positive.

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.

When I see that my last post is from the end of August I feel that time is running away from me. We went back to school on the first of September and since then I have been on the run. I have been trying to get up at 4:00 am every morning in order to sit and work on my doctorate. I can’t say that it happens every day and there are days when I do get up but have some urgent assessment or planning to do for school and I do that. Most days I manage to take a few baby steps forward.  

I am working on three different things at once. My ethics application is being read by GP and I already know that there will be many changes made to it. I wanted to get the application in and authorized before starting this years’ courses but I understand now that that was unrealistic. Once I have the forms in, I need to send similar documents to the Israeli Department of Education, to get their approval too.

In the meanwhile, I have started working on the literature review, according to the recommendations in Destination Dissertation by Foss and Waters. I feel as though I am progressing and am enjoying the work so far.

In addition, I started teaching the first of my four professional learning groups yesterday. As part of my big effort to write a lot about my experiences with the groups, I returned to blogging this morning.

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The clock is ticking all the time and I must write a new post, the one I got up to write, about my session yesterday.

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?

I am so happy that I didn’t just give up and accept the instruction from the Education Department to close my course down immediately.

The same afternoon that I met the inspector of professional development, I received a positive answer from her. I have to make some technical arrangements and then we can keep learning together. I won’t be getting paid as much but that doesn’t really matter here.

Now more than ever I feel that I have to prove that the course is worthwhile.

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?

Yesterday, an hour before I left to teach my PL course at N., I had a phone call from the head of the centre where the course is held. She had bad news. There are not enough teachers enrolled in the course and the Head of PL in the area has decided to close down the course. Of course she explained that it has nothing to do with the content or the quality of the course, it is a purely financial decision.

My immediate reaction was anger. Why now? Where had they been for the past two months? Why didn’t they tell me before I sat all weekend preparing my lecture? And what about the teachers? They have attended four sessions and they won’t be recognised.

The answers I received were that the teachers will be able to join another course, even though they are also well into the syllabus. Is that taking the learning of the teachers seriously? Do they think these teachers are only studying to show that they are doing the compulsory 60 hours to get their salary rise?

I immediately wanted them to cancel the session, to call the teachers and tell them not to come. When I cooled down a little, I decided that that wasn’t fair and that I wanted to meet them face-to-face. I knew the teachers would be both disappointed and angry and that is how they reacted. They were angry that the learning process we have begun could be cut short. They sat down to write an email to those in charge saying that they are extremely involved in the learning process and that their students are also undergoing changes in their learning and writing as a result of the course.

I don’t know where things stand today, in the next few days I will speak to some of my peers and will try to find some more participants. Ironically, we had a new teacher join us yesterday. She remarked that she was surprised to find the group members talking in a common language and she explained that she could feel that the group had undergone significant learning together.

In spite of everything going on, we held the session. I dared doing something I haven’t done before. I asked the participants to do the writing task from last years national Meitzav literacy examination for 7-8 year olds (grade 2). Surprisingly nobody objected and the discussion afterwards was fascinating. We looked at the process each teacher underwent as she attempted the task. We discussed the differences between the texts produced and explored the teaching necessary to bring young pupils to success in similar situations.

This morning one of the teachers commented that the experience and the following discussion were very important and gave her a lot to think about. I’m happy I didn’t cancel.

As far as the future goes… who knows?

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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…

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I have been back at school for four months now and my writing is definitely suffering from lack of time. I always have the feeling that I am doing what is urgent instead of what is important.

Last week I had my fourth meeting of my course at N. There are still few participants but I think those who are with me are happy with their learning and their feedback is definitely positive.

Over the school holiday week, most of the participants of my two courses wrote their first narratives. Many expressed difficulty with the task and some called me on the phone and asked for some encouragement. One waited for the next meeting to discuss ideas with me face to face. I was happy with the results for a first try.  Last year it took a lot longer for the first participant to post her narrative and a large percentage didn’t post at all.

In the meeting at N. I was able to bring many of the narratives as examples in my recent lecture on the writing process. This was important as again I was connecting the two levels of the course – the level of the teachers and their professional writing and the classroom level.

The combination of face to face meetings and written conversations on the course web site is perfect. The teachers are expected to write throughout the course and as they write they reflect on their writing pedagogy and on what their pupils experience in the classroom.

I was fairly disappointed in the amount of discussion between the participants so I will allow time for that in the meeting. I was also surprised that few of the participants related to the reflection questions. We will discuss them in the next face to face meeting and then I will post a similar question to allow discussion in writing.

I was happy to read that several participants have increased the time they allow for writing in their classroom. Some have even chosen to give writing with their students “another go” after not daring to deal with it in recent years.

My experience in the past three weeks has proven, yet again, that writing is extremely hard work. To read narratives from 20 or so teachers and plan and write a response to each is tiring and draining. Despite being overloaded I am very happy that I gave the task so early on in the course. The narratives really do give me a good peek into the world of each of the teachers and show me where she is in terms of teaching writing. Now I have to connect each narrative with the face of the teacher who wrote it.

It is very satisfying to hear that questions raised in the course have already triggered changes in some of the classrooms and that many of the ideas I have presented are being experimented with in the field.  We have a long way to go yet but I am enjoying my interaction with both groups.