I Have Been Away...

It has been a tough haul of late.  Midway through two posts in early December, I received a call that my mom had pancreatic cancer.  It was a very tough battle with a very aggressive disease.  She passed away exactly six weeks after that day, without ever shedding one tear.  Needless to say, there is a huge hole in my heart right now, and writing has been something that has needed to fall off the side of my desk for a while.

I'll be back soon...

Gamification, Part Deux

So, we were at a friend's place this weekend, and they had a new game system that had open-source type games.  Without getting into the details, the game system and game that they chose to play had no instruction manual, no explanation of what the game was about, no reference to how to score points, what the points did, how to achieve merits and badges, how to find the power ups, where to find the power ups, how to use the power ups or any information around the power ups that would help the kids choose the merits of using a power up in any given situation.

Here is what I pieced together:

The snowboarder in this game was racing.  Then, he was being chased by something that turned out to be the Grim Reaper.  There were gold coins.  Some of the objects on the course knocked him out of the game if he touched them and others just stunned him.  There were random meteor showers, sharp barriers that hurt him, outhouses and snowbanks that he just bounced off, exploding mines, Pterodactyl powers ups that picked him and and flew him high above the course, a power up that changed him into a giant wrecking (snow)ball, a jet pack power up, and jumps and trick moves that gave the player bonus points if they figured out how to use them.  Also, the longer he lasted on the course, the more points he gained.

Whew, that was a lot for me to take in.  When I played video games, I scoured through the instruction manual.  This manual always included the background story for the game, instructions, tips and tricks to excel with, the point scoring system, and a detailed map of what buttons were needed for what moves on the joystick.

This game had nothing.  Of note, it took the kids under a minute to figure all of this out, to beat the high score and then do it again, over and over.  They figured out not only how to jump, but how to add in sweet snowboarder moves for extra points--flips, tail grabs, 360s, etc.

And, here is what else I saw...

• The kids working together to "decode" the game
• The kids not just sharing important information, but pooling it together to improve their experience
• A single-player game become a group experience
• Complex problem solving
• A shared language develop right before my eyes, along with a shared rubric for success
• Individuals supporting each other
• Stronger players assisting (and celebrating the success) weaker players, in a mixed group of 9 kids, boys and girls, 5 years old to 13 years old.
• 9 kids sharing one controller, taking turns one at a time
• Laughing
• Good sportsmanship (one boy was given a bum-steer which led to a quick end of his turn, to which kids all laughed and then cheered "re-turn" because they made him fail and didn't want him to feel jilted)

...and, all of this was done with a 100% chance of failure.  The "Game Over" banner kept scrolling across the screen and they kept eating the game up.  No one had any real success.  No one defeated the game.

But, they kept trying...with smiles on.

All the adults did was institute a "3 attempts per kid" rule before they handed it off to the next one waiting in line so that each person's turn wasn't mere seconds long. 

They failed, over and over and over again.  Sometimes, almost instantly.  They failed because they didn't understand the objectives of the game, because they didn't understand the rules of the game, because they weren't good at the game, because they didn't know which buttons (tools) to use, because they didn't know when to use a power up (resources), because they didn't pay attention enough when they were waiting, because they forgot to ask for help, and they failed because they were often talking when they should have been listening.  But every time, they jumped into the driver's seat with vigour and energy.  Every time, they dusted themselves off, got back up and tried again.  And after 3 failures they gave it up to the next in line for a turn, but not before giving them some tips and tricks from the experience that would help their friend do better than them on the next play.

I sat back watching all of this, wondering how fast I could destroy all of this enthusiasm for learning by:

• making them sit in rows without talking or looking at anyone's work
• having one adult demonstrate the game, explaining each (boring) detail at the level of the lowest (and youngest) learner
• calling kids up--one at a time--to try, and then go sit down while the others watched quietly
• scoring them on their success based on my criteria, that may or not have been shared with them up front or during the process
• telling them how important this "irrelevant thing" (kid words) was going to be for them in the "real world" (adult words)
• scolded the ones waiting for not paying attention (while they sat quietly, keeping their eyes and hands to themselves, waiting for their turn)

My guess is not very long.

And, don't worry; after everyone cycled through their turns twice, the game was shut down and the kids bundled up and sent outside to play in the snow for a few hours.  A learning experiment is one thing, but a video game will never replace the kind of learning that happens when a bunch of kids go outside and play in the snow.  More on that one later... :)

Gamification

Gamification of learning activities is a strategy that "rewards players (learners) who accomplish desired tasks.  Types of rewards include points, achievement badges or levels, the filling of a progress bar, and providing the user with virtual currency" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification).

 A colleague introduced me to gamification this week.  He works in a virtual environment where they are having great success.  He said that if he returned to a "regular" school he would gamify everything.  He would create student "houses", and give out rewards for individual achievement and for groups achievement.  He would give out helper points.  It wasn't, however, the use of badges and banners that got me excited (blogger's note:  I am still scarred from a keynote by Alfie Kohn, around the time of the release of his book Punishment by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's. Praise and Other Bribes), but his observations that led him to this strategy.  You see, he was watching his grandson play video games and noticed the following things:

• Why will a child try a video game over and over, even though they continue to fail?
• During this "trying" they are engaged, and not a behaviour problem.
• They like the badges and rewards that they earn on their quests, and feel great success when the complete a task and "level up".
• They work hard learning how to win, and in the process they learn how to lose.
• Games have built in cheats, and the kids work incredibly hard researching and learning the cheat codes to do better in the game, all the while learning new things.

This reminds me of another Principal who looked at the skateboarder culture.  He watched kids try a trick over and over again for hundreds of hours.  He tried and tried and tried again, and in the process scraped skins off his body, bruised his muscles and broke his bones.  He tried despite a 100% failure rate until he finally achieved success.  Then, he started the process over with a new trick.

Hmmmm...

...and here at school, kids fail once and then never want to do it again...

They fail once, and the "are done".

Somehow, we have to tap into these classic examples of intrinsic motivation.  Somehow, we have to allow the process to be more engaging to the students than it is to us.  Somehow, we have make learning something that makes failure worthwhile, so that students will come back over and over and over again until they master the tasks that we have set out for them. 

Somehow, we have to make "the learning" something that they want to do. 

Thoughts?  I'd appreciate anything to add to my own new thinking to this topic.

I Took A Risk This Week

 

We have really been pushing learning strategies to engage students at our school the last year and a bit. 

• We have inserted them into our staff meetings, where we model the strategies and make the staff work through them
• We built our Implementation Day around student engagement activities
• About half of out staff have received Kagan Cooperative Learning training (1-5 days worth)
• Our Circle of Friends (grade 1-6, multi-aged) groups, who meet once per month, are working on a cooperative learning project with student engagement structures embedded into it
• We have had a Kagan coach come into the school
• Many staff are sharing ideas and resources, and restructuring their classrooms around the training that they have received

 I am so pleased with the direction that we are moving, and very proud of my staff.  Still, I really wanted to push the envelope.  I wanted to do something beyond what I (and we) maybe thought that we could.  So, I took a big risk this week and put my money where mouth was.

I used a cooperative learning structure to debrief our last Circle of Friends activity...with all 237 students--at once--during an assembly.  It was wonderful!  Sure it was noisy, we would expect that when 237 people are sharing ideas with each other in the same room.  Sure, it required a bit of set up and a bunch of help from my teachers;  I think that we would expect that too.  What we ended up with, however, was spectacular.  We had every grade, partnered up, sharing their ideas of what a sensible school was (what we would see, hear and feel).  That means, for each question exactly 50 % of the room was talking and 50% was listening.  We modelled appropriate greetings and compliments, we changed partners, and we were engaged!  When I was a student, the most common scenario was 1 teacher talking and 32 students listening.  Think back to what I just said happened in the gym where everyone was partnered up and taking turns listening and talking.  1 out of every 2 students was sharing, and 1 out of every 2 students was listening, and then sharing back (with compliments!).  That is a phenomenal improvement in both participation and accountability.

A move from this:

 

To this



And, best of all, it worked!

Ed Camp

This week, our Itinerant Learning Network prepared an Ed Camp for the administrators in the district.  Similar to a the unconference that we did last year, ed camp is designed specifically for teachers and their needs.  Prior to our meeting, the planning team sent out an electronic survey requesting input from us about the burning topics on our minds.  They collected and collated that data, and organized a schedule with meeting rooms for the most common topics (see below).

 

We then chose where to go, sat down and waited for the group to form.  We then began to talk and share, generating all sorts of ideas to borrow and steal, and colleagues to network with for support and collaborate with.  It was authentic, it was real and it was time well spent.  Instead of feeling talked to, I was an active participant in each conversation, some as a listener and some as speaker.

In the end, we were asked to identify topics/colleagues that we would like to work with and some dates were given for us to meet.  People self-selected roles such as presenter, expert, experienced, novice and host.  Some of us will stick to one topic within one group, and others will move from topic to topic and group to group, as there needs see fit.  At the end of the year, we have a date scheduled for a dinner meeting where we will all collect and share out our experiences.

Some of the highlights from my experience on building collaboration in schools:

• one colleague has 60 student teachers visiting the school on Tuesday mornings to observe instructional practice in the classroom so that they can compare experiences and debrief back at the University.  Wow, isn't that cool (for both the school and the student teachers)!
• one colleague has built a block of collaborative time into the weekly schedule of the teacher-librarian to help teachers find a teaching partner to collaborate with.  We are also doing this at our school.  Yah us!
• one colleague blocks school-based team time into her assembly schedule so that the SBT can meet during weeks when there are no assemblies.  This is great for her because it is a time when no one has a scheduling conflict.  We can't do this because of part-time schedules this year, but it gives us some great ideas for next year.
• one colleague is engaging intermediate teachers with the early learning profiles (literacy) that teachers build for each student K-3.  We hope to get there soon.
• one colleague has started moving staff meetings around the school to different classrooms, giving people a chance to connect with people and ideas in  a way that they never seem able to.  What a great idea!  They are even considering moving off-site for a future meeting.
• two colleagues of very small school combined staff meetings, alternating between the two schools.  They shared the agenda and projects, and then planned implementation days and their ELFF (Early Literacy for Families) nights together.  Awesome!
• one colleague at a high school has a department identifying learning objectives and sharing those with its feeder schools in an attempt to better identify the stumbling blocks for students.  Cool.
• one large school gives up every second staff meeting for departmental collaborative time.  The Principal provides a focus question and collects minutes from department heads.  I love the stories about people finding ways to make it work.

For me, this is the type of professional development that really gets me jazzed up;  it gets me actively engaged in my own learning and learning needs.  I leave feeling like I am in touch with the pulse of the district, which is something that can be hard to do when you are busy working away at your own small school. :)

Click here for some more information on Ed Camps:  http://edcamp.org/

Turning Your Back on the Future

Last week, I had the opportunity to hear from some of our best district student leaders who are preparing to host the Canadian Student Leadership Association Conference in September 2014.  They had just returned from the most recent conference on Prince Edward Island, and they were brimming with enthusiasm--and a little jet lagged.  The student joined the Principals and Vice-Principals for small table discussions to talk with us about their leadership journey.  The student who joined us shared two very inspirational ideas that are currently driving her:

Stay in the moment.  She explained to us that young leaders needed to "stay in the moment" and enjoy the life that they are currently living.  To do this, she told us that they needed to turn their backs on the future.  Wow, that really hit me.  Turn your back on the future in order to stay focused on the present.  I think that this is great advice, even for a 40-something principal. 

I have some very successful friends the same age enjoying a variety of careers right now, and we are all creeping towards that awkward "mid-life crisis" point of our lives.  To avoid the affairs and red convertibles, we have done what most guys never do:  talked about our feelings.  Knowing that someone else feels the same as you has a weird way of making you feel better, and that, along with some appropriate reading, has really made a difference for each of us.  As a young man, everything in my life was so centred around me:  my accomplishments in sport, getting good grades, getting into the right university and program, graduating with distinction, getting a job, getting into the right Masters program, graduating with honours, getting my first admin posting, getting my first Principalship.  I defined myself by listing my accomplishments.

And then 41 came calling...

I guess it really started before I was 41, but that was the time when I stood back and looked mirror and really freaked out.  You see,

• I wasn't a superstar athlete anymore, and it took tonnes of work to keep myself fit enough to play soccer at a reasonably high level.  And, on those weeks that I didn't get in my runs through the orchards and vineyards, I suffered come game time.  It was absolutely clear that I wasn't ever going to compete in the Olympics.
• I had some newish pants that were a bit to snug in the waist, hiding--yes, I am ashamed--in the back of my closest.
• I was a Principal, doing a good job, doing the things that I felt I needed to do, and nobody seemed to care or even notice.
• My life was so busy, and getting busier and busier at home with a wife who was a doctor, and three kids in activities.  A typical family week outside of the school day included 5 soccer games, 2 soccer practices, 2 piano lessons, 1 Cub Scouts meeting, 1 basketball practice, 1 basketball game, 1 tap dance lesson.  Fast forward to this week we have 5 soccer games, two soccer practices, 2 piano lessons, 2 banjo lessons, 1 tap dance lesson, 1 basketball practice, 1 basketball game, 3 field hockey practices, 2 field hockey games, 1 rugby practice (games coming soon), two evening work meetings, a dinner at grandma and grandpa's, a pool to winterize, etc., etc., etc...
• I perceived that I was struggling to find the time to connect with my spouse and myself.
• Everybody was watching.
• I was the only one feeling this way.

I had it all wrong, I wasn't defining myself by what I thought about myself, but what others thought of me. Instead of judging myself by my accomplishments, I needed to start defining myself by the things that were important to me.  The reason that we have so many after school activities in our family is because we value the things that these activities--music and sport, in particular--instill in our family.  Exercise is hard to fit in, so a soccer game a week for me is a good thing.  The kids are involved in sport and I coach them...great family time.  My wife is taking piano lessons with our youngest and I am taking up the banjo with our middle child.  Music is good for the mind, and soul, and this is more special time between parents and kids.  Those snug pants?  The exercise has got them back onto a hanger.  Was anyone watching?  Not really...at least not with the same lens that I was using.  Was I the only one feeling this way?  Nope, that's the myth that a little friend talk dispelled.

And, for that Principal thing.  The reason that "no one" was coming up to notice anything was symbolic of the job that I was doing.  I wasn't in need of support, so support wasn't pouring in through the front door. That realization was huge for me.  You see, I wasn't looking ahead for the next thing.  I was living in the present, and that was at the heart of what our grade 12 student was trying to say.  It is also a realization that I have to find happiness in what I do, not what other people--through promotions, raises, acknowledgements--can do for me.  I have to look at myself and be happy with what I find, not rely on someone else to fill my bucket. 

I had to turn my back on the future to realize what I have right now.

The second inspiration that our grade 12 leader shared with me was her belief that if your goals don't scare you, then they aren't big enough.  This idea was a good reminder never to stop dreaming; turning our backs on the future to enjoy the present doesn't mean that we still aren't dreaming of the big things to come.  In fact, I think that having a better awareness of my present allows me to dream better goals for my future and allows me to enjoy the journey;  if we can't enjoy the journey, why would we take it in the first place?

Parenting Advice--Building Resiliency

Last week, my new-to-high-school daughter missed her first bus.  Her teacher PE teacher dismissed them late, she dawdled in the change room, and then arrived at the bus loading location to find--to her great surprise--that the bus didn't wait for her.  She walked home with a friend and called our house, and fortunately Grandma was over visiting and drove down to pick her up.

My response to this lesson sent shock waves through some of our parent friends.  First, I made sure she thanked Grandma for the ride; I would have made her endure the long walk home.  Second, I told her that there were some good lessons to be learned from this experience: 

1. She is solely responsible for getting herself to the bus
2. Do not dawdle (this was self-admitted) when getting changed, exchanging Library books, talking to friends, etc. when needing to accomplish lesson #1
3. If, in a worst case scenario, she ran to the bus wearing sweaty, smelly gym clothes...well...she would have still been on the bus
4. I cannot drop everything at my school and drive 45 minutes to pick her up on a nice sunny day to save her from an 6 km walk home.  Emergencies?  Absolutely, and I will be there in 35 minutes, but not for this.
5. Lastly, and this is the one that my friends had the most trouble with, I didn't call the teacher and chew him out for this inconvenience.  I didn't because, she needs to understand that getting to the bus is her responsibility (back to lesson #1), I didn't because I only knew one side of the story, and I didn't because she knows that I can't solve every little problem by rushing in "mama bear"-style and yelling at people. 

Of course I will follow up with the teacher if this becomes a regular occurrence, but not for a one-off event even if that one-off was exactly how she described it.  My kids need to be able to problem solve themselves out of trouble, and to do that they need the chance to actually try.  That's how we support responsibility.  That's how we build resiliency.

I found an article today on ParentsCanada.com called "How to interact with your child's teacher", and I think that there are some connections between what the author Nancy Fornasiero is saying and the point that I am trying to make.  Nancy describes 9 "types" of parents, and I will borrow the following three for my post:

1. The tattle-tale: Do you go "straight to the top" with every concern?
• As a Principal, I will listen to a parent's concern, but I always refer them back to the classroom teacher for an issue stemming from the classroom.  I know that my teachers will come back to me if they need some advice, support or resources to solve a problem, but cutting them out of the loop only damages the relationship between school and home.  We ask our students to deal with issues together, and we need to expect the same from the adults in our school community.
2. The fixer: Can you not bear to see your child struggle of fail?
• This is a hard one, and one expressed most often to me because we do not want our kids to have to fail or to feel bad.  I believe that many successes stem from experiencing something undesirable and then having the gumption--the moxy, as my dad would say--to make the changes necessary so that it won't happen again.  I also think that it's okay to feel bad when you have done something wrong; that builds empathy.  When I graduated from high school, I included the following quote in my yearbook message: "A kick in the ass is still a step forward".  I still believe that to this day.
3. The blind believer: Do you forget to take your child's version of a story with a grain of salt?
• This is a hard one for parents because they take such a black and white stance to issues.  I spend a lot of time helping them to understand that (1) I believe that their child is telling me the truth from their point of view, and (2) there, quite possibly, might be more than one version of the truth.  This does not mean that their child is a liar!  We know that memories are anchored by emotional experiences, and if an experience emotes emotion (a fight, and argument, someone feeling slighted, etc.) it makes it very easy for us to add in our own feelings.  How many times, for example, have you had a imaginary conversation between yourself and someone that you are in conflict with (it often happens for me on the drive home) where you get to a point where you can't believe what they just said to you (remember, it's still imaginary)?  The next day, you interact with that person, they give you "a look" and you then fill in all sorts of blanks with what they meant, including some that they might not even have realized that they gave you.  Whew!  How about some of those "at home" conflicts?  You get on your teen for "always needing a reminder to take the garbage out", without noticing that they had done it twice without being asked.  "My parents are always mad at me", or "they never notice..." are common complaints that we hear at school.  Remember, the comments don't have to be true to be believed.  Real strength comes from listening, taking a step back and helping our child to see multiple points of view.
• Take some time to talk to your child's teacher, and I bet that you will find not only someone who cares a lot, but someone who knows your child much better than you think.  No one likes to be complained to, so develop a relationship, and talk about all things that go on in the classroom, not just the negative ones.  My children know that dad knows their Principal and their teachers, and that I am not going to over react to a small injustice.  They know that I have their back, and that I am so proud of them when they show responsibility, when they problem-solve, and when they advocate for themselves.