Be Inspired! Team Awesome at ASCD!
Marjorie Rehlander, Sade Tate, Erin Armstrong, Elizabeth Robitzsch
Team Awesome traveled to ASCD in Anaheim, CA to find continued inspiration and information to inform our continued question on how to be there when students need us! We have focused on a lot of communication strategies between staff and schools to help increase time management for staff to focus more on the relationships with students, and add continuity as students move from school to school. We are excited to be working towards the implementation of BrightBytes as a technology solution to this communication hurdle. We have been working to fit in training in these last few weeks of schools, so staff have access to tools as they re gear for next year.
We visited ASCD to see how others were dealing with these hurdles and helping to support students. We found lots of inspiration from leadership topics, continued discussion about specific at-risk needs, and lots of information about inclusion. All these topics close to our heart and our mission to promote inclusive practices, and smart or matched support for students.
In our investigation we found a principal from Mississippi who stole OUR Awesomeness! It was interesting to hear his Blueprint for Awesomeness, and how similar his journey was with ours. Check out his Blueprint for Awesomeness @SteeleThoughts. He identifies these keys to his success: Connect with your values, Identify your vision, Raise expectations, Personalize Data, and Force Collaboration.
We were also happy to learn that the topic of autism is alive and well in all settings of education! This session was fully packed 1 hour before the presentation started. While Team Awesome works directly with these types of Risks, we were interested to find that the topic is of high interest in settings other than special education. We also spent time learning about keys for inclusive strategies with students. We found information and speakers from some fabulous empathy innovators working on expanding inclusion opportunities and changing quality of life for some of our kids! Here are some thoughtful phrases:
- Meetings the practical opportunities to work!
- Is special education just a game of musical chairs? Who gets excluded?
- Willingness to change the rules of the game
- Masters of content and masters of access
- The past got in my eyes
- Student characteristic versus classroom characteristics
I hope you find some inspiration to share where you are at!
Innovative Classroom Solutions
Guest blogger: Amy Reynolds, Round Top Elementary
Teaching in this day and age can be very stressful. Classroom teachers have more and more demands placed on them each year. The majority of teachers came into the field of education because they LOVE children and find so much joy in watching children grow and learn, but the stress of the job seems to be taking away much of the joy we once felt.
The physiological makeup of the child who walks into the classroom today is MUCH different than it was 10 years ago. Teacher anxiety is at an all time high because we are not sure what problems we will encounter when our students walk through our classroom door. All classroom teachers now experience children with impulsivity, high-anxiety, emotional meltdowns, and sensory issues. Additionally, there is a growing disconnect between the extremely high academic expectations versus the level of developmental readiness in children.
For many years as a teacher I have asked… WHY? Why are students having so many problems? Where are the problems coming from? How can I help them?
In order to figure out the answer to this question I went back to the foundation of what makes each of our students unique: their bodies and their brains. Understanding this connection can give us insight into helping children who lack focus, independence, relationship skills, attention, and self-control.
Some of the problems we see in students are directly related to student’s bodies. Body issues include poor body awareness, developmental problems with their eyes and ears, as well as immature motor skills.
What we see:
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What we think:
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What may be going on:
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What we can do to help:
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Difficulty keeps hands to self; can’t sit still or stay in seat
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Behavior problem ; Repeatedly doesn’t listen; ADHD
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Poor body space awareness; knowing where their body starts and stops
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Core training exercises
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Loses place when reading or skips words; poor eye contact
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Not paying attention; rushing; lacks confidence or poor reader; maybe autism spectrum disorder
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Weak eye muscles and/or poor eye alignment; difficulty with smooth left to right visual tracking
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Difficulty rhyming; poor decoder; poor dictation skills; clumsy; difficulty following multistep directions
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Learning problems; Doesn’t listen; ADD
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Poor auditory memory; Poor auditory sequencing and poor auditory synchronicity
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Chronic meltdowns and crying
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Emotional problems; Spoiled or “over-indulgent” parenting
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Nervous system stuck in sympathetic stress response state; cell level anxiety from high risk pregnancy, difficult birth; poverty or chronic stress home environment
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The body and the brain (nervous system) are the foundations for learning. It is important to recognize that if there are issues with the body and brain we can identify, then many of those issues can be improved or completely corrected. If these issues are not identified and improved or corrected, learning and academic growth and achievement are adversely affected, and may be for years to come.
What if the early childhood classroom focused on the developing the body-mind connection of young children? What if we focused on the science behind learning? What if exercises were integrated into the classroom to improve visual tracking, auditory tracking, core strength, hand strength, motor coordination, calming strategies, and balance? Additionally, we could employ tools and tasks to help with attention deficits, impulsivity and hyperactivity. What if we build early learners with a stronger, broader foundation for academic and social-emotional success? That is differentiated instruction, and that is educating the whole child more effectively.
What I know for sure…if you build a strong foundation, learning will follow. A strong body is a strong mind. Let’s rethink the early childhood classroom and design proactively for student success!
Amy Reynolds
SLC3 Sustainability Curriculum Update
Kimberly Parker, North Springs Elementary
Recently, I was asked to take a personality quiz to determine the category that I fall into personality wise. The result was a four letter combination - INFP. I am an INFP. I means introverted, intuitive, feeling, and perceptive. Basically, I am a person who keeps to myself while caring about those around me. This wasn’t too terribly surprising to me, as I am typically quiet and reserved, but am easily sensitive to the needs and feelings of others. Yet, I have surprised myself recently with the roles that I have taken on while in Richland Two. According to my personality profile, it is against my nature to step out in front of a crowd and express my hopes, desires and dreams, even when I would give anything to see these come to life. But… that’s just what I did with R2Innovates, and it is paying off!
A few years ago, my students opened up a passion within me that I didn’t realize was being kept dormant. That was a passion for our beautiful Mother Earth - a passion to see her preserved through the efforts of my students - of Richland Two students - of students that are reached through the efforts of those I teach. Could I do that? Could I have that impact on society, even if it was just a fractional piece of society? Being a part of the R2Innovates team has helped, and is still helping today, in seeing this dream come alive and remain alive.
So, I am quiet and reserved, right? That’s what my profile says. So, why then, did I take on the task of leading a team for R2Innovates? Well, apparently, the feeling and perceptive part of my personality dominated the introverted part! Knowing that our Earth IS suffering because of the impacts that humans are having on it drove me to step outside of my comfort zone and taking this bull by the horns! That’s what happens when a person is truly passionate about an idea or concept that they want to see in place. That’s what happened to me and to my colleagues. We realized the potential we could have if we could just get our Curriculum for Sustainability out to others - if we could just provide other teachers with support for teaching sustainability in their classrooms. Imagine, one teacher encourages another who encourages a class of 20. Those 20 go home and encourage two family members who go to work and encourage their coworkers. It’s a chain reaction, and more and more people are now aware of the needs of our Earth. That’s what makes this program so dynamic! It’s the ability to take one simple idea, share it, grow it, and eventually make it a habit for so many others!
The process of writing this curriculum has taken my team down many different roads. The learning that we have encountered has been remarkable! We have met so many new people in the county, state and district that share a very similar vision. My school, has taken the leap to become a Green Steps school. We have have written and been awarded a Lowe’s grant for two greenhouses for North Springs Elementary. Other teachers in the school have joined us in our endeavor to create curriculum and we have plans to begin working with Mrs. Ziegler from the ZooBots program. She will be assisting with the curriculum so that it feeds naturally into her program. Our STEM program at North Springs is naturally lending itself to a Green initiative in that our fifth grade classes are consistently growing lettuce through a hydroponics system and have plans of designing a green city to learn about renewable energy sources. Through the Green Steps program, we have mentored with Chenille Williams from Richland County Conservation group to work with our local watershed project. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.
All in all, we are having a beautifully successful and sustainable school year! I have taken my comfort zone and expanded it to include actually asking others for help and advice. I have to say, I’m pretty proud of myself for that. I am forever grateful for the R2Innovates process that has not only grown me as a professional, but has also given life to a dream of mine. I could never express my gratitude adequately for the experiences and opportunities that were opened up to my school and my team, and ultimately to all of Richland Two
Guest post by Marjorie Rehlander, Team Awesome
Team Awesome is developing systems and processes so that all students have support in their time of need.
I once had someone ask me what it meant to be “Awesome”. I couldn’t help but giggle a little bit, and I am sure you will if you ask this out loud to yourself. To be fair, there was some context to this, as I was developing my first attempt at an awesome committee and looking for volunteers. So it was a little bit of undefined “work”. In the world of education, I am sure that all of us have encountered a task list of things that are a little less than awesome. Being buried under a pile of un-preferred tasks was the inspiration of an Awesome Committee.
Team Awesome is developing systems and processes so that all students have support in their time of need.
I once had someone ask me what it meant to be “Awesome”. I couldn’t help but giggle a little bit, and I am sure you will if you ask this out loud to yourself. To be fair, there was some context to this, as I was developing my first attempt at an awesome committee and looking for volunteers. So it was a little bit of undefined “work”. In the world of education, I am sure that all of us have encountered a task list of things that are a little less than awesome. Being buried under a pile of un-preferred tasks was the inspiration of an Awesome Committee.
Being empowered to work on tasks I am passionate about, and encouraged to make them a priority for where I spend my time, makes those tasks I "have to do" a little less painful. Over the past two years, I have had time to develop exactly what being Awesome means, and luckily I have had the opportunity to develop this with a unique, wonderful, messy, and loud team. We met during leadership training, got to know each other through a shared passion, and have continued to find ways to share “Team Awesome’s” ideas and passion through R2 Innovates.
Team Awesome has a mission to look at the big context of what obstacles impact student successes across elementary, middle, and high school and find ways to reduce the negative impact. We have found that there are passionate teachers, students and others who are struggling. The biggest obstacle that they encounter are communications barriers that exist in a big education system, and the growing transience of our community. Everyone has a story of awesomeness. Sharing it, appreciating it, and finding others with similar stories is important to learning as much as the mechanics of reading or arithmetic.
The obstacles within a school system are not all that different between levels of school, but how and when students experience the most difficulty is very different and impacts everyone differently. We can never know how one’s experience will impact student achievement, but we do know how to identify successes, and how to celebrate when that happens! It is clear that the answer to the big, messy problem of making learning awesome is not something that is going to happen with one program, or one system. There is not a written protocol, or procedure. And most importantly there is more than one way. It will happen when all of our staff and teachers have the opportunities to access information when it is needed, share with others, and never ever accept something that is not “awesome”. We have found that a lot of times the communication tools we choose helps to drive conversations, and it is important that everyone have a conversation. You know the kind where sometimes you listen, sometimes you share. The kind of conversations that happen with one or two people, or the kind of conversations where everyone is involved.
So the answer to this question of how to become awesome, really depends on the individual. You must first decide to be Awesome no matter what, and then seek out those around you that have the same commitment.
We have found a lot of success in the innovation design process. Innovation, I think, is as much about a mindset, as it is a method. One of the mindsets that speaks loudly, is the idea of Ambiguity. Partice Martin from IDEO shares that “We may not know what the answer is, but we know that we have to give ourselves permission to explore.” Or from an awesome perspective… “we don’t know what is not awesome unless we try something..” How do we ask questions? Who do we ask questions to? Who is helpful in finding answers? Who is helpful in putting up barriers? On team awesome we are all very different thinkers and problem solvers. We have a dreamer, always moving a mountain to find an answer or building a new mountain. We have a researcher, one who develops and forms ideas from knowing everything there is to know about best practice. We have a planner, one who is able to create a task list, keep us on track, and always able to pull out the important information in a mound of details. And finally, a doer, someone that jumps first, always, never says no, and continues to see the awesomeness through piles of maybe non-awesomeness. Those that have met us can probably identify who is who, but most important is that together we are more awesome then we are individually. What we have in common is our willingness to explore, or try new things.
I am sure that you will be hearing more about Team Awesome soon. You have time to decide if you want to be Awesome, and find others! Ask questions, seek information, and do not accept answers that are not-awesome. You can find more information about Team Awesome and our goals and you can join our conversation with #R2quality #R2bridgingthegap. Share with us what you think is awesome around you. What do you see?
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