Something that has been coming up as another component of a teacher's role that feels more catered towards checking off an administrative box than serving students is writing "I Can" statements on the board. Take a quick look at social media teacher groups and you will find the dark humor that comes with coping with the millions of expectations and decisions we face daily.
If I am being honest, "I Can" statements are really to support me along the path of the curriculum to maintain focus in moving forward with students. I use them to determine if students are on track or not. There are also attempts to bring students into the conversation about I can statements. You can find them on every set of notes, every Canvas page, every review. These "I Can" statements come from just taking the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and adding "I Can" to the beginning, with an occasional break down in the TEKS (i.e. Algebra 2 TEKS 2A.4 says solve quadratic and square root equations, which is typically broken into I can solve quadratic equations and I can solve square root equations). There are also "I Can" statements with English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS). For example, ELPS c4D could be written as "I can monitor understanding and seek clarification through listening." Let's be realistic, do these mean anything to students? My guess would be no. We do not intentionally bring students into the "I Can" statement creation because they are out of their control. It comes from state curriculum requirements to earn credits for specific subjects. What if instead we had "I Will" statements? All of my students can add, subtract, and multiply polynomials to some degree, but which ones will choose one method over another to demonstrate their understanding? All students can put their phones away but will they choose to do so? I bring this up because there is a distinction between something we can do and something we choose to do and will do accordingly. I can go to the gym every day for at least thirty minutes but will I? I can clean the dishes in the sink but will I? I can stop working during a holiday break but will I... depends on how much I can shut off the balls to the wall mindset I have going on. If we want students to be VOCAL and have ownership of their learning, we need to give them choice in what they will choose to do. We can tell them all we want on what they can do, but it comes down to will they do it and what learning environments are we creating to foster a sense of self-worth to decide they can and they will. More on teacher "I Can" statements for another day... but just something you can think about now, but will you think about it later and take action?
References
Bored Teachers. (2023, September). Instagram. Www.instagram.com. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw2seuWvgXR/
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We need to teach into the unknown. Innovation is preparing students for their future, not our past." Grant Lichtman's TED Talk about his experiences on his road trip to observe schools across the nation over ten years ago really resonates with me and my innovation plan, teaching 21st century skills in a blended learning environment.
I do not disvalue my educational experience as a student or the experience of others, but let's be honest. It is outdated. Some of us lived in the student world that transitioned from learning from transparencies on overhead projectors and chalkboards to INCREDIBLE technology... where computers were gigantic monitors and towers, the internet came on an AOL CD, can you hear the dial-up sounds in your head right now? Our ringtones came up recording the audio from the radio at just the right time or from our Limewire downloads and advanced technology was an anti-skip CD player. Others of us lived when these things were science fiction. If we continue to use what society has engrained in us to believe is proper education, factory-model instruction, one-size-fits-all standardized testing, sit-and-get teacher-centered lessons, we are living in a time machine that is taking us to the past where we don't belong. It brings slight comfort to know that Grant was able to learn that for one school's problem, another had a solution, and vice versa. What stinks is I would love the time to go explore other campuses, other math classrooms, and see successes, but when is there time? This goes into developing effective professional learning, where time and resources could be spent on teachers to actively engage in their learning through continuous observation and feedback. But doing this requires systemic change, so what influence can we have to get this change to happen? One possibility is moving higher up in the educational hierarchy but with my experience, those who move up get sucked into the vortex of the past and forget how to consider challenging the status quo. Another possibility is through voting and impacting legislation but I am not sure what that really looks like. When we look at resources like this, looking to see what these presenters are doing now helps me strengthen (or sometimes weaken) the message. Fortunately, Grant is still blogging (https://www.grantlichtman.com/blog/) and one post he has is from December 19, 2019 (The Three Tipping Points for School Change). He continues to write through the pandemic, but even though this post was just months before our worlds were flipped upside down, he captures what is needed eloquently.
The Desire to Change
“We want something different from what we have.” The Dedication to Challenge “We ask our students to get outside of their comfort zones and take risks.” The Decision to Control “We can’t control everything, but we are going to totally own what we can control.” (Lichtman, 2019) This could apply to us right? We want something different from what we have, an educational system that supports and encourages authentic learning. We ask ourselves to get outside of our comfort zones and take risks, embracing innovative lessons. We cannot control everything, but we are going to totally own what we can control, which is what happens in our classrooms daily. This blog is now bookmarked, Grant seems to be on to something...
References
Lichtman, G. (2019, December 19). The Three Tipping Points for School Change. Corwin Connect. https://corwin-connect.com/2019/12/the-three-tipping-points-for-school-change/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=SAGE_social&utm_content=corwinpress&utm_term=6bad4b6b-44c0-4546-be62-e90caed921e8
TEDx Talks. (2013). What 60 schools can tell us about teaching 21st century skills: Grant Lichtman at TEDxDenverTeachers [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZEZTyxSl3g After watching Angela Lee Duckworth's video for the thousandth time (this particular video seems to come up a lot not just in this program, but a lot of professional development workshops I have attended), I wanted to explore more. What has she been up to the past ten years? Is she still engaged in education and teaching students about these other traits that develop their character? She is!
I wrote about it in another blog post, My Name is Ashley, and I am a Recovering Procrastinator (believe it or not, it's true), and a new perspective I am starting to see is how growth mindset and learner's mindset can apply to procrastination. Growth mindset and learner's mindset is not something that you can implement in a day; it requires continuous, small but substantial incremental steps that add up. Growth mindset really impacts those learners who struggle in the traditional academic setting but not so much for high achievers. They see growth mindset is just another thing they can be smart about, which follows a fixed mindset perspective. Often times, my high achieving students stop trying when problems or questions become challenging, because then their intelligence cannot be questioned. You can't say someone is wrong if they never made an attempt in the first place, right? That's their viewpoint. They will believe they have a growth mindset, but it requires intentional reflection and metacognition to realize that no, you actually don't. Lately I have been privileged to witness some beautiful student character. I teach level and honors Algebra 2, and in level Algebra 2 I have a wide range of students. Students who have had to repeat every math subject in summer school or credit recovery up to this point, students who have major discipline and attendance issues with constant disruption to their engagement in the classroom, and students who at one point were in honors classes but decided for a number of valid reasons they needed to "level down". When students finish assignments early, I introduce them to the honors content for that day, which typically extends the knowledge just applied or enriches their knowledge with additional topics. Usually, students just smile and nod, going about working on tasks for other classes. A few of my students though have been more engaged, pushing themselves to complete the required level work so they have more time to explore and try the honors material. In fact, I have shared with them the honors OneNote and OneDrive folder so they can independently review the material and track their progress and understanding through my posted keys. What stinks is they cannot "level up" at this point; our campus and district policies do not allow that during the school year, so they technically will not receive any additional credit or grade points for learning honors material. What is incredible though is witnessing the growth mindsets they have to choose to learn because learning and challenging oneself to go further is what really matters. This same experience happens for those students who historically have not been successful in a math class, except with the level content. For them, that is the chance to explore and try, push themselves to deepen their mathematical understanding, and finally feel success through hard work and effort. My activities are at different levels within a class and I assign them the one that meets their needs. If they finish, they know they can move to the next level activity to keep growing. At first, there is moaning and groaning because "I finished already!" but soon they realize that learning is never over, and they can build their confidence further and improve even more than before because they have established a background and foundation to build on. These experiences make me consider the lead versus lag measures too, which I have written about in my Big Picture Goals. Our culture is a now culture - instant gratification and we want to see results instantaneously. A growth mindset requires lag measures, reflecting back on where we started and the journey to where we are today, as well as being inspired to keep moving forward towards more transformational growth. Our students deserve the time investment to show and model what growth mindset looks like, sounds like, acts like, and feels like so they can carry it into their futures. I am realizing that I need a growth mindset on what growth mindset looks like for different people and different students. Meeting people where they are at and modeling for them how they can respond to grow is another way to positively impact lives. |
My husband lovingly teases me when I reflect on my day with him and say "I learned something new today!" because he would be surprised if I didn't learn something new.
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