Strength or Weakness - Depends on Context

Whether in school are workplace performance evaluations, there is much focus on strengths and weaknesses.  You might work in a place that does verbal gymnastics to prevent using words like "weakness," so they might call it something else, like "opportunities for improvement."  Whatever the verbiage, it's the same thing.  There is a list of things you appear to excel at and a list of thing that you don't, at least not yet.

A few years ago, at a Learning and the Brain conference, Dr. David Rose came into deliver a keynote address, pitch hitting at the last minute for someone who was ill.  While I would love to see the person who was slated to speak someday, Dr. Rose's speech was amazing.  He had worked as a very young man for B.F. Skinner during the famous pigeon experiments.  While I learned a lot from that portion, it wasn't the main thrust of his speech.  Mostly, he discussed what it meant to have a disability and whether or not something that might be a disability in one situation could be a strength in another.  He explained that he was tone-deaf.  This might not be considered a disability, but most would likely think of it, at least, as a weakness.  After all, it interferes with one's ability to identify voices and enjoy music.  

Or does it?  It turns out that there might be a situation in which it helps.  He was attending a church in which the organ had fallen out of tune.  The discordant tones were driving everyone else crazy, but he was happily singing along as he always had because his tone deafness prevented him from knowing the difference between an organ that was properly tuned and one that was not.  This weakness turned out to be a strength in that context.  

Conversely, I have had students with "perfect pitch," a seeming strength for aspiring musicians.  But, I have watched them cringe at tones being even slightly less than perfect - even when it was just a group of people singing "Happy Birthday."  They do not enjoy much of the music they listen to because most music doesn't rise to the level of perfection.  What we would identify as a strength becomes a weakness in those situations.

I'm not a fan of most personality type testing because there is little to no science behind any of them. They only tell you what you already know about yourself because you are the one answering the questions.  However, in the training I do for camp, we are divided into four personality types (and I am less than shocked to find out that I am a planner).  The reason I am okay with our doing this, despite my skepticism of the tests, is that it leads to a discussion about the need we have for every type of person at camp.  

If there weren't planners, we would arrive at camp, ready to have fun, but there would be no food, no activities packed on the truck, and no program.  It would be total chaos.  Planning is an obvious need and strength.  However, if ONLY planners showed up at camp, we would be on time for every well planned event with no one to provide the energy.  Camp wouldn't be any fun.  If all the staff were super focused on relationships, the kids would bond well, but rules would go out the window, and that could make things dangerous (at this camp, especially, the rules protect everyone).  The point is that we need each type of strength to be present, or those strengths would make a very weak camp.

For 18 years, I was a yearbook advisor.  I had quite a mix of students with a variety of strengths.  Some had an incredible knack for visual balance and creative ideas about how to represent events.  Some had the ability to write with concision. Some understood how to include every member of a team on a page without it making the page appear overcrowded.  Some were super critical.

You don't think criticism is a strength?  Then, you have never needed an editor.  A yearbook editor needs to see what is wrong with a page and be able to fix it.  The gentle optimist is generally not suited for the job.  My first editor was incredibly self-aware, and it led to a practice I'm glad we established early.  She emailed me and said, "I don't think I can tell her what I think of her page without making her cry.  Why don't I send my thoughts to you and you tell it to her in a nicer way than I can?"  The lack of tact that accompanied her strength of criticism would have been a weakness if she hadn't also been able to criticize herself.  For the next 17 years, that was the process, saving everyone a lot of heartache and making for a better creative environment.

My point is this.  Instead of telling students or employees what their strengths and weakness are, we should talk about the contexts in which all characteristics could be best used.  It's easy to think a weakness should be eliminated if you don't recognize that there could be a situation in which it is a strength. Suggest to a student that they might be good at . . . because of that trait that they have previously been told to eliminate.  

Research Ed Notes - Saturday October 19

These are raw, unfiltered notes.  More intelligent processing to come later.

Professor Pamela Snow - Reading Instruction and Professional Accountability: Challenges and Opportunities for Classroom Teachers

Reading is important for individuals and for society.

• But it has long been contested.
• Whole Language sold us a story in more ways than one and had a hidden curriculum.  It relationship with evidence was problematic (as much of education has been - but is slowly changing).

Preservice teachers have been exposed to wrong information, leading to poor knowledge translation and the creation of echo chambers.  This leads to poor academic outcomes and pervasive harm, not only to students, but also to the professional standing of teachers.

Kenneth Goodman's teachings were about whole language but had an impact on teacher professionalism.  He said things like, "teachers know what they are doing because they are professionals" and shouldn't be beholden to "academic gurus." Teacher agency was valued above evidence or outcomes.

Teacher Knowledge - You as a teacher cannot give what you don't have (the Peter Effect), so if a teacher doesn't have knowledge of language constructs, it will be difficult for them to teach students to read. Yet, there is an inverse relationship between knowledge and confidence.  Do elementary school teachers have an understanding of the history of the English language?  If not, they won't understand the tiers of vocabulary.

"Teachers, not programs, teach children to read." - Dr. Louisa Moats

But HOW should teachers teach?  Unlike the general atmosphere of "guide on the side," the evidence supports explicit instruction. 

Professionalism means:

• high accountability.
• ethical commitment to practice according to the best available evidence and adapt as the evidence changes.
• respect children's time.
• using high quality materials rather than making our own and hoping they'll be good.

In other professions, we expect accountability and sanction when professional standards are violated.  Reading instruction is key because reading is the way students access every other part of the curriculum.

The science of reading is not a pedagogy; it is an evolving body of knowledge that needs to be thoughtfully and carefully applied.

Just as the tallest trees in a forest flourish because they receive the most light while those below don't get resources, teachers and students often get less exposure to evidence because school leaders, policy makers, and education academics are not sharing.

David Daniel - Usable or Just Interesting: How Relevant is "The Rearch" to Those Who Actually Educate?

Teachers under attack. They are called indoctrinators, liberals with an agenda. How do we defend ourselves?  We paint ourselves as saints and martyrs.

We need a way to generate evidence of our own practice.

It is often difficult to translate the research evidence into the classroom. We need to generate evidence rather than just consume it.

It's all hypothesis until YOU put it into practice.  Everything works somewhere, and nothing works everywhere.  "Let's try it in my classroom."

Studies that were working to generate data didn't work once the researcher left.  There is a difference between evidence inspired and evidence produced in the classroom.

The idea of skin to skin contact being critical to bonding was 100% taken from goats.  This did harm to women whose babies had to be taken to the NICU or were adopted.  It's still taught even though we now know it is not true (unless the mother believes it because she changes her behavior based on that belief).

Research needs to be done "in the classroom."  Applying the principles of cognitive science is harder than knowing them.  When learning them, put on a critical thinking hat that makes you ask how it could be applied realistically in your classroom.  Create a science of teaching rather than just a science of learning.

We need a better model for moving promising findings from research into actual practice in the wild.

What if you developed your own experiments from hypothesis to data collection?  It needs to be natural and fluid within the practice.  If it comes from the outside, it will make teaching more difficult.

Other professions have agreed upon processes that take promising findings to ubiquitous practice.  Education doesn't have one.  Without a system of proof, it's not a profession; it's a faith-based calling.

Look up "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning."

A statistic is not significant if it isn't relevant to your practice.

Sometimes side effects are more damaging than the problem you were trying to solve.

Research is clean and uncomplicated; teaching and learning is messy and complex.

The comparison of "team based learning" to lecture is only significant if you choose a bad lecture.  If you have a typical or excellent lecture, you have two things that work.

Solutions can come from a lot of places.  It doesn't have to be from the primary literature.  But the literature could inspire ideas for things you want to try and test.  It takes the pressure off of trying to "be right" of the time because you are "trying to find out."

Steve Hare - Pullting Themsevles Up: Self Remediation in the Math Classroom

Story about a boy with a number of strikes against him.  How he worked slowly and self-motivated at home.  His aid was reassigned because he didn't need her anymore.  He learned that "slow and right beats fast and wrong."  He learned he loved math.  He found out later that he had accelerated in subsequent years.

Putting examples frequently throughout the practice problems (rather than a couple at the beginning) allowed him to cover all potential sticking points, nuances, and exceptions.  Got emails from students and parents saying that they had work they could actually learn from.  (And they were doing it during lockdown, when there was little incentive to do things and little penalty for no doing them.)

Self paced activity sequences with frequent worked examples allowed each kid to self-remediate.  Using pre-worked examples make the activity self explanatory.  (You will likely have to make them yourself.)

You Teach You has many self paced math activities.

It is self-differentiating, and there is no shame because no one knows what anyone else is working on.

Don't underestimate how much work students will do when they know it isn't pointless.

M-J Mercanti-Anthony - Combatting Skepticism and Finding Entry Points for the Science of Learning

The Bronx broke up giant schools.  A large building that used to be one school is now three different schools that share only a cafeteria.  Students can't get lost, falling through the cracks large numbers create.

Causes of Skepticism:

• Initiative Churn - Too many new fads require too much time and attention to implement.  This may just seem like another one.
• Unfamiliarity - If your training involved other things, you may not know about the research findings.  Most teachers are still holding onto educational myths (learning styles, left brain/ right brain, etc.) because it was in their college courses.
• The Sincerity Problem - Trying to make everyone happy, promising a particular outcome, and not addressing people's fear of direct instruction can make them question the sincerity of the presenter.  The Faux Inquiry process results in confirmation bias.

Possible Entry Points:

• Give a scenario and ask a question to prompt conversation about the answer before presenting the concept.
• Just ask, "How do people learn?"

Three Tools to Support

        Having a strong professional environment allows teachers to grow.  It must be peer-led, trust-based, 

        slow and deliberate, and simple enough to respect teachers' existing work.

• Small group modeling - Weekly meetings in which teachers are presented with new techniques and encouraged to try it and report back.  It's low risk; we're just sharing.
• Lesson study protocol - Teacher shares a plan for a future lesson to implement a strategy and gets feedback from others in the meeting.  She then reports back after doing it in the classroom.  Everybody hates protocols because they are unnatural, but they work.  Medium risk because you are opening yourself up to criticism.
• Intervisitation - People come and watch a teacher implement a strategy.  Then, there is a debrief on the visit with positive and negative feedback.  Highest risk

Cynthia Nebel - Creating Learning Equity with the Science of Learning

Host of the Learning Scientists podcast

To get to long term memory, new information must pass through working memory.  Working memory is finite in both space and time.

For students with high anxiety, low working memory demand problems are fine.  They do not perform well on those problems that require high working memory.

Applying cognitive psychology to instruction is about building teaching and learning strategies that harness attention, memory, and perception.

Reduce working memory requirements for any given task

• Spaced practice:  Instead of reviewing things all at once in a short period of time, space that out over time. (Study 1 hour for 5 nights rather than 5 hours in 1 night.)
• Forgetting is essential for learning.  If you try the same problem again too quickly, you will believe you got better and faster at solving it.  Really, you just haven't lost it from your working memory yet, so you don't know if it is in your long term memory.  If you test immediately, everyone will do well.  BUT that is not learning.  
• If you can't remember it later, you didn't learn it.
• Spacing helps with vocab, facts, texts, problem solving, motor skills, surgical skills, etc.
• Spacing is usually coupled with retrieval practice, but it doesn't have to be.  It can also be spaced presentation.
• Retrieval practice - bringing information to mind
• Retrieval provides opportunity for feedback and reteaching.  It also has an impact on motivation and a direct impact on long term learning.

Background knowledge is one of the most important aspects of reducing working memory demand.  While a good reader will always get more out of passage than a poor reader, a person with more background knowledge on the passage's topic will get more out of it than a good reader with low or no background knowledge on the topic.

Reduce cognitive load associated with anxiety

• Allowing students to write about their anxiety before a test allows their brain to offload it from their working memory long enough to reduce its impact on their assessment.
• Taking away stereotypical environmental factors can reduce working memory load as well.  (Computer science study - remove the nerdy stuff from the room, and women are more interested)

Andrew Watson - The Surprising Science of Classroom Attention

We want to move things from the outside world into a student's long term memory, but it turns out that is a really complicated process.

Research cannot tell you what you must do.  It can only inform how you make decisions.

"Don't do this thing; think this way."

Why do students have a hard time paying attention?  (This is not a hard question to answer.)

We fundamentally misunderstand what attention really is.  Once we get that right, the solutions are easier.

Attention isn't a thing.  Attention is a set of behaviors that students exhibit when three other mental processes are present.

• Alertness - Too much alertness is equally problematic as too little alertness.
• Orienting - There are a lot of stimuli in the environment.  Orienting is choosing which one to attend to.
• Executive Attention - Effortful control of cognitive processes (Example: Showed words and asking us to say what color the font was.  The word RED was in blue, so it required us to control our mental processes.)

Getting a question wrong is different than thinking about a question the wrong way.

If you say, "Pay attention," you aren't telling the student which of the three things they need to fix.

Alterness solutions

• Create or allow movement
• Create visual novelty

Orienting solutions

• Address the bug in the room or firetruck driving by or weather at the window
• Don't over decorate your classroom
• Use technology judiciously
• Address the immediate usefulness of the content - have them do something with it now.

Executive Attention solutions

• Assume working memory overload and reduce cognitive load

Kristen Simmers - Adaptive Expertise in the Science and Art of Teaching

Teaching is a scientifically substantiated art.

What is Mind Brain Education (MBE)?

• The interaction between multiple fields (neurology, psychology, health, etc.) and classroom practice
• The bridge between education and our understand of the brain has often had gaps.  It's getting better, but it still has a way to go.
• MBE enhances your lens on what is happening in your classroom.  It gives a better understanding of the complexities of your situation and helps fill out your toolkit.

What is Adaptive Expertise?

Master teachers make it look seamless.  They are constantly noticing, assessing, changing, pivoting, and adapting in subtle ways based on their experience and expertise in both their content and pedagogy.  

They have a deep enough knowledge to flexibly address new and unforeseen challenges.

Routine expertise is like conducting and orchestra - everything has a specific place and role and everyone does what they are meant to.  Adaptive expertise is like playing jazz.  You understand the goals and can improvise with them.

"All new knowledge passes through the filter of prior knowledge.: - Dr. Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa

Neuroplasticity

When you learn something new, your brain grows new connections.  New connections are typically weak, so purposeful repetition and practice are needed to strengthens it.  Your brain won't waste metabolic resources on connections you don't use, so it prunes the connection by weakening the synapse (forgetting).

Emotion and Cognition

"It is literally neurobiologically impossible to think deeply about things that you don't care about." - Drl Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Emotion and cognition are all interconnected in ways we didn't understand before.  Nothing works in isolation.

An emotion is never inherently positive or negative.  How it impacts learning and action is context dependent.

Practical Advice for Your Student - Part 3 - Test Taking

In spite of the grade controversies you might see on Twitter, tests are an important part of learning.  It is important for a teacher to know if students have knowledge or can perform a skill on their own without teacher support.  They also provide an opportunity for retrieval practice, and important part of solidying memories.  

That's not to say they cannot be improved.  It would take too long to grade and give feedback for every question to be free response, especially for those teachers who have classes of up to 35 students.  So we are left with things like matching, multiple choice, fill in the blank, etc. for the sake of efficiency.  Much of the test taking advice you see online (like choose C because it is the most common right answer - which isn't even true anymore) are for those who don't have a clue about the right answer.  If you have studied, it is unlikely that you don't know anything at all.  So the advice in this post is for the conscientious student who prepared for the test.

Multiple Choice Questions

When I met with students, I asked them if they were the kind of person who quickly picked an answer and moved on or if the kind who talked themselves into every answer.  For both, I first offer this advice.  Bring a blank index card (you can also use a cover sheet if provided or even your hand) to cover the choices.  Read the question first and think of the answer in your mind.  Then, go look for the right answer.  The only type of question this won't work for are those where "all of the above" is the right answer, but there are usually only 1 or 2 of those on any given test.  For those who tend to talk themselves into the other choices, they don't even have to look at the others (maybe jump down to quickly to make sure "all of the above" isn't a choice).  For those who choose answers quickly, they will at least be more likely to be committing themselves to the right answer.

If, when you thought of then answer, you had some doubts, you can then go to look at the choices.  My next best advice is to cross out those you know to be wrong.  Then, go on to another question.  When you return to the one you had doubts about, you may find that your mind has continued in diffuse mode, allowing you to be confident about one of the answers you have left.

Short Answer Questions

It is easy to write something without really thinking about it.  I can't tell you how many times I have written next to an answer, "Read this out loud.  You'll hear that it doesn't make sense."  That's not me being mean; it's just easy to write without checking to see if it says what you meant.  You obviously can read your answers out loud during a test with other students around.  However, you can do two things.  First, you can do what I call "Reading out loud in your head." What I mean by that is rather than passively taking the words into your eyes, be intentional about "pronouncing" the words in your mind.  I think it is called "self talk," and it helps.  The other thing you can try is to ask the teacher if you can step into the hall and actually read the answer out loud so you can hear it.  I wouldn't do it a lot, but it could help if you are really stuck on a question.

The Order of the Test

Because we number the questions, students assume they must start with question 1 and go in order.  The problem with that is that the most challenging questions are often on the last page.  Because of the benefits of moving from focused node to diffuse mode, the best advice is to start with the hardest ones. Recognize when it is time to pause and go on to some easier questions, so you can return to them after your brain has had time for active recovery.  The other benefits to doing it this way are that you are able to time your pace better when the easier ones are the ones that are left and you don't already have an exhausted brain when your reach the free response section.

Finding the Good in Bad Times - What We Can Teach Our Kids

My plan was to finish the series in practical advice for students this week.  But the effects of Hurricane Helene gave me the opportunity to observe some things I feel are worthy of comment.  So, I'll be back with test taking advice next week.

Hurricane Helene was a record storm, but it was made worse by its path.  People at the coast are accustomed to storm season.  They have sandbags and plywood at the ready, knowing they will need it at least once.  More importantly, they have flood insurance.  But why would anyone in Asheville, NC have those things?  That would be as odd as someone in Miami, Florida having snow tires.  The initial death toll is devastating and growing. And there are still people trapped due to road closures. It's just awful, and there's no other way to describe it.

But, as we often see in tragedy, there is good.  Setting aside the scammers and gougers trying to profit from the tragedy and Marjorie Taylor Greene's nonsense assertion that the storm was man-made to hit Republican voting areas (like that's even possible and like Asheville and Miami aren't completely blue - no Beth, don't get distracted by her crazy), we are seeing charities, churches, non-profits, and individuals doing whatever they can to help.  I work at the YMCA, and the donations have poured in. Within an hour of posting a list on their social media pages, one branch had this small pile. Today, that pile covers the sign.

Twenty-four hours after the list was posted, my other branch was loading these into an empty room to clear space in the lobby.

And by the end of the day Sunday, that room looked like this.

By the way, the Triangle YMCAs will be collecting until the 10th, so drop by with anything you would like.  Don't even worry about finding the list; they are collecting pretty much anything you can think of.  Friday, they'll drive them up to the Ys in Western NC to distribute to their people.  Also, if you know someone who has been displaced by the storm, they can come into any Triangle branch and be issued a free 30-day membership.  We had someone come in a few days ago from Wilkesboro just to take a shower because they hadn't been able to for a week.  (Imagine the basic human dignity that just comes from feeling clean. We were so happy we could provide that for him.)  A member from Asheville was driving through town a few days ago, and she scanned in just to use the bathroom because she was tired of stopping at gas stations. We take so much for granted until we can't.

My church was loading a truck on Saturday to take up to our sister church in Asheville, and halfway through the morning, they had to go rent a second truck.  So, people are doing what they can.

As teachers, parents, or anyone else who influences the lives of kids, we have a moment here as well.  I'd like to address a few of them.

Teach empathy - The obvious first step is to teach kids empathy by asking them to imagine what it would be like to be trapped without food or the inability to get clean. Ask them to donate things. They are amazing when you give them a cause. 

Teach the value of small actions - Some won't be able to do much because they just aren't in a financial position themselves, but it is always so good to know you contributed to a larger whole.  A student who can provide one package of toilet paper might feel like they aren't doing much, but if your whole school or church is collecting, and they see their donation as part of a truckload, they can recognize that a lot of little adds up to a lot.

Model sanity - If you are online, you have read a lot of nonsense in the last few days.  From the people who are disparaging FEMA with the false assertion that they are denying aid but sending body bags or that Biden and Harris haven't visited the area (or accuse them of just engaging in a photo op when they are there) to those who won't acknowledge the good that Samaritan's Purse is doing simply because they don't have any respect for its founder. 

If you have influence over kids, it is your responsibility to stay above the fray on these things.  Tell them instead how grateful you are to live in a country that has an emergency management agency. Tell them you are happy there were governors who declared the state of emergency before the storm hit (something they couldn't have done 50 years ago) in order to get the funds freed up as quickly as possible.  Recognize out loud that a lot of people are helping - including people you don't like - and that is a good thing.  

Listen to them - The world we are living in right now is tough, so it is no wonder that kids are suffering from anxiety disorders at a higher rate than ever.  Most of the people reading this only did fire drills as kids (maybe tornado drills if you lived in those areas). Current students participate in at least 1-2 active shooter drills per year. Most of them know someone who has been in either an active shooter situation or the threat of one. They don't know what to make out of the chaos in the Middle East. Don't think they aren't paying attention.  They don't have the luxury we did as kids of simply not watching the news; the news comes to their pockets 24 hours a day.  In 2020, the first person I heard suggest that schools might be close was a high school student.  Last week, the four-year-old granddaughter of one of my friends took a dollar from her piggy bank to her mom and asked if they could go shopping for the people that got hurt in the storm.  That was the first her mom knew that the child was even aware of the storm.

Kids, especially teenagers, are rightly concerned about the word they are going to inherit.  The least we can do is listen to those concerns.  Don't pretend to have answers that you don't have. They won't feel better if you try to put a happy face on it. They will feel better if you acknowledge their real concerns. But that doesn't mean compounding their anxiety with your own either. Catastrophizing will not help. You have the opportunity to loan them your calm.  Tell them how you are getting through the times we are living in - It could be prayer, focusing on the helpers, engaging in gratitude exercises, or engaging in physical exercise. Kids feel better when there is something to do, so give them an action step.

In the book of Genesis, we find the story of Joseph. He was sold into slavery by his own brothers, accused of a crime he didn't commit, and wrongly imprisoned for several years. If anyone has ever had the right to be bitter against his family, the government, and even God, it is Joseph.  Yet, at the end of the story we find him telling his brothers, "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." He focused on God's plan, which is so much bigger and more complex than we can imagine.  We would be wise to follow that example.