7 Things and Pop-Tastic

I’ve been tagged for the “7” things meme by Ed Shepherd from Learning to Collaborate. The idea is to share "7" things about you that readers of your blog wouldn't know about you unless you told them.
1. I have a twin sister who is also religious sister. She is a Franciscan nun. I call her sister – sister. She likes that better than penguin. Even though we didn’t grow up in Peoria in a funny way we now live a few blocks apart. Her convent is around the corner in West Peoria a lovely town referred to by locals as the “Catholic Ghetto”.
2. In a former job I worked with a soybean option group on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. I loved it but felt compelled to work in education. I still trade commodities on the side to make some extra scratch and I manage a handful of accounts for friends and family. I also teach our seniors every year about futures markets and how they work. We have a great time with the “PND futures project”.
3. I’ve driven a cab in the summers to make extra money. It’s a cash business and actually pays surprisingly well. The hours were a little rough 6 pm to 6 am and all but I did have a great time while doing it.
4. I love when telemarketers call I really do. I have so much fun with them. It cracks my wife up and makes my kids snort chocolate milk out their noses. I try to be nice as I play with them but it is a stitch to watch.
5. I attended Wabash College and changed my major four times. Biology to psychology to economics and finally theology. Wabash is a small liberal arts school in Crawfordsville Indiana and it is one of two all-male colleges left in the United States. Wabash also has the longest school song you’ve ever heard of. I played football and baseball there although “play” is a strong verb for my contribution to the team.
6. I’m only 31. People give me a hard time for being a principal at this age. They might be right. My hair is already turning white and I enjoy the endless parade of calls at home about non-important issues. I’m getting an unlisted number. But I love what I do and find it incredibly challenging and stimulating.
7. My kids are better dancers than me hands down. I’m a really, really, really, awful dancer. I agreed to dance the tango in last year’s spring musical play. In the second showing I fell on my ass and tried to sell it as if it was scripted. Thankfully it has been captured on video for all to see.
I’m supposed to pass this along and tag 7 others but to be honest I’m on the late end of the tagging and now that I’m it as I look around most the bloggers I can find have already been tagged. If you haven't been tagged then "tag" you're it.

WINNER OF THE POP TASTIC AWARD

That’s right I’ve been nominated by Paul for a pop-tastic award for having an intriguing blog with a small but growing audience. Thanks for the props and as part of being the receiver I will pass the award along to the following six bloggers who always keep me stimulated and coming back for more. I read a lot of great education blogs but part of pop-tastic is choosing blogs that you don’t find on everyone’s blog roll. They are:
Claire Thompson
Jan Borelli
Michael Parent
Mike Smith
Ed Shepherd
Bill Farren

How we dropped our student failure rate by 75%

We set a staff goal to decrease our student course failures by 50%. As the early numbers trickle in, we are on path to reduce the course failures by over 75% from this same time last year. We’re so excited that we wanted to share our success with other schools.

Part of being a principal involves worrying about our students. If we don’t worry we probably should find a different line of work. In terms of academic failure there are always a few names that come quickly to our mind.

Last year’s student support group spent a lot of time worrying. Every week seemed the same. A typical example is as follows: We’d open with a short prayer and then go over the academic failure list. The same names peppered the list every week and the explanation was usually the same. Billy struggles to turn in homework. Sally is a poor test taker and her teacher in that class has the majority of points coming from tests and quizzes. Jake is a good student and talented but doesn’t come to school very often and seems to have a finesse for missing Mondays. I’m sure your school has students similar to Billy, Sally, and Jake. We were great at identifying the issues and giving the warning talk but no changes really took place. Some students fell through the cracks and ended up at the local alternative school. Others fell off the path to on-time graduation and enrolled in the neighboring public school where graduation requirements are not as strict.

Our administrative team resolved to make the 2008-2009 results different. Over the summer we created a plan of action with our leadership team of establishing various student support teams. We divided the students into six groups by alphabet and created six teams consisting of an administrator, a counselor, and two teachers. The teams met a minimum of twice a month and monitored students assigned to their alphabetic group. Each meeting consisted of not only identifying the issue but also the plan for improvement with the requirement that the plan be tied to a measurable goal for improvement. The team would decide which individual member would follow up with the identified student and what the plan of action would be as well as the measurable goal. The teams would follow up in two weeks and if the student hadn’t met the goal, a new course of action would be set. Everything was logged in a google doc that team members could reference.

Here’s an example: In early October Billy presents on the weekly failure list as carrying an F average in two classes: Geometry and English. As the team meets they pull up his grades via our online grade network and see Billy is missing eight of ten homework assignments and is at a 69.5% in English due to a low test grade on the 1st half of “Brave New World” by Huxley. The team decides to set a goal for Billy of completing his missing homework by the next check in period and earning a C or better on the next exam. Billy’s English teacher offers a study session before and after school the day before any test. The teacher assigned to work with Billy goes over the plan and Billy agrees to it (freewill is important). After two weeks Billy has pulled up his English grade but is still failing Geometry and has only turned in two of the missing homework assignments. At the next meeting the team see’s Billy’s status and discusses with Billy and his parents (via phone) that Billy needs to finish the missing homework assignments and can attend morning peer-to-peer tutoring for help. Billy agrees… and on and on.

As the semester went on, the effectiveness of the interventions was tied to the strength of the relationship created between the team and their students. Parents were ecstatic about the help being offered their children. They were also impressed with how well our staff knew their child. Looking for the Friday afternoon’s failure list became an exciting event to see who had made progress and who hadn’t.

These teams also helped build a spirit of fellowship between the various administrators. Friendly competitions and side wagers took place between the various teams as they jockeyed to have the lowest failure rate. But in the end it was the students who benefitted the most. Seeing a student move from the failure list towards their potential is an exciting thing to watch.

What is more astounding is the number of creative collaborative ideas that have come out of these meetings. We are creating mini-courses on test taking skills for those students struggling with tests. We’ve formed a peer-tutoring program. We’re working on a homeroom plan for next year that creates a special study homeroom for students who are failing as well as Saturday homework days for those lagging behind.

I wish we could report 100% success with our student body but there still remains a handful of failures.

Here is a link to the google doc with names removed. link here

Finding Time for Holistic Education

This week we are featuring our first guest blogger: Mr. Dave Worland from Cathedral High School in Indianapolis.

I am a principal of a Catholic High School with the following Mission Statement.
Cathedral High School Mission
Cathedral, a Catholic college preparatory high school, provides to a diverse group of students opportunities
for spiritual, intellectual, social, emotional and physical growth through service and academic excellence.

I believe that most Catholic schools probably have a similar mission statement.

As principal, I find it challenging to try to fit a holistic education into 180 school days, including Masses, pep assemblies, reconciliation services, prayer services, guest speakers, professional development, and service learning. We have tried combining breaks in the schedule so that if we have one program and a different than normal schedule, we have two events in the same day. This does help us have more undisturbed school days (which keeps the faculty happier), but still leaves me wondering if we are stretching our students too thin.

I have looked at possible solutions (i.e., having more than 180 days), but know that it will be difficult to be a private, Catholic school in today’s economy when we will have to pay the faculty/staff for more days, provide some bus transportation for these days, and perhaps lose some part of the population with such a move.

I am wondering what other schools in similar situations have done.

Here is a link to a survey to help share how your school addresses these issues: link here

How to Identify Great Teaching

What are the qualities that truly set “star” teachers apart from their mediocre or average colleagues? If we could answer the above question accurately and guide teacher development along these lines powerful learning could take place.

Perhaps the single greatest factor in any school’s effectiveness is the quality of instruction that takes place. Well designed backward curriculum, deeply funded technology resources, and sparking state-of the art facilities are all rendered irrelevant by incompetent teachers. Even the much-haled small class size has less of an impact than high quality instructors. I’d place my own children in a room with thirty other students and a great teacher over a room with ten and an average teacher any day of the week.

As principals we are uniquely aware of all the side issues that go along with bad teaching. The constant phone calls, class drops, requests for preferential placement, and disappointed families could all be avoided by having a school filled with only high quality excellent teachers. Sounds dreamy doesn’t it? As principals, we all know when the phone rings and it is a call “not about playing time” that the concern is probably focused around the two or three worst teachers in terms of instructional quality.

Malcolm Gladwell in a recent article for the “New Yorker” comparing quarterbacks, financial traders, and teachers has highlighted one skill that is universally found with all excellent teachers: high quality personal feedback.

The quality of personalized feedback is perhaps the largest single indicator of classroom effectiveness. An example Gladwell sites from a Virginia study is shared below.

"Then there was the superstar—a young high-school math teacher, in jeans and a green polo shirt. “So let’s see,” he began, standing up at the blackboard. “Special right triangles. We’re going to do practice with this, just throwing out ideas.” He drew two triangles. “Label the length of the side, if you can. If you can’t, we’ll all do it.” He was talking and moving quickly, which Pianta said might be interpreted as a bad thing, because this was trigonometry. It wasn’t easy material. But his energy seemed to infect the class. And all the time he offered the promise of help. If you can’t, we’ll all do it. In a corner of the room was a student named Ben, who’d evidently missed a few classes. “See what you can remember, Ben,” the teacher said. Ben was lost. The teacher quickly went to his side: “I’m going to give you a way to get to it.” He made a quick suggestion: “How about that?” Ben went back to work. The teacher slipped over to the student next to Ben, and glanced at her work. “That’s all right!” He went to a third student, then a fourth. Two and a half minutes into the lesson—the length of time it took that subpar teacher to turn on the computer—he had already laid out the problem, checked in with nearly every student in the class, and was back at the blackboard, to take the lesson a step further.

“In a group like this, the standard m.o. would be: he’s at the board, broadcasting to the kids, and has no idea who knows what he’s doing and who doesn’t know,” Pianta said. “But he’s giving individualized feedback. He’s off the charts on feedback.” Pianta and his team watched in awe"

Gladwell goes on to raise the issue of whether teacher prep programs are valid in terms of these skills. The argument of whether good teaching is innate or can be taught is worth taking up. Take a minute or two and read the full article here: link to New Yorker article.

What has been your experience as a principal? What are the key characteristics you find that excellent teachers share? When you hire, how important are formal credentials like certificates and state mandated qualifications? Do you know of any metric to measure the quality of teacher feedback?