Month: March 2018

We can trick ourselves into thinking we are smarter that we are. Not only that, we can trick ourselves into thinking that we have “the answer” to problems. The fact that we can trick ourselves becomes very clear in those moments when things do not go as planned or new information is presented.

A good definition of intellectual humility is “how tightly (or not) you cling to your own opinions”(Drake Baer). New research is showing (article and summary) that people who are humble are better at making decisions. Does this mean that those that are not humble are doomed? Most of us know that we need to keep intellectual humility, but how do we go about maintaining it?

A process that I have found effective in guarding myself against my own ego is to engage in Learning Sprints. Now originally, the reason I started in sprints was to better organize professional development and collaboration at our school. I was looking for ways to better improve learning for students by getting teacher to learn together. It turned out that there were side benefits to this way of organizing our learning.

The core part of the Learning Sprints process that helps to keep us humble is that we are constantly experimenting and evaluating our actions. We are asking ourselves over and over it we did something to improve learning and what the evidence is that shows it. If we get our evaluation correctly, it will tell us without bias whether we are right to continue with the intervention we have chosen. Built into the system is the process to keep us humble.

One might be tempted to think that a group of experienced educators would be able to choose interventions that work every time. You would be wrong. We regularly make mistakes and our evaluation loop lets us know. The process is constructed to keep us humble.

At times we need to blow the whole sprint up, but usually we try a smaller change or focus to see if that nets better results. We set up the evaluation process again and start anew. The data and our students will tell us whether we are getting it right.

The process can be improved to ensure even better intellectual humility. By sharing and having conversations with others we gain new perspective that keep us honest and humble. The sharing of a Learning Sprint becomes important, as it is when shared that these questions will get posed. Another way to keep us humble and doing what is best for the progress of the learning of our students.

Guard yourself against being the know-it-all by using processes, such as a Learning Sprint, that keeps you honest and humble.

John Hattie’s meta-analysis of educational research was groundbreaking back in 2009. As with any enduring work, I find myself going back to the study and learning new things. Now to be truthful, I am usually going to the updated versions of the meta-analysis with the Visible Learning organization compiles yearly. The list has slightly changed over the years, but the principles remain the same.

Lately I have been focused on the piece about knowing the impact that new interventions and strategies have on learning. One way I have interpreted this is to build in evaluations to new programs to understand whether they are having positive impact on student learning. If we are targeting a year’s worth of growth for all students, we need to know whether what we are doing is moving our students forward in their learning.

Like many teachers, I have often been hooked on the good feeling of doing something new and fun. I would start a new initiative that the kids enjoyed and think that learning was taking place. Often times good learning was going on and this new thing was an improvement, but there were other times when it was not an improvement. The problem is that I only found out whether learning has taken place much after the concept was taught.

What I have learned is that to ensure that new ways of teaching are having an impact with the individual group of students that we are working with, we need to build in evaluations to our changes. We need to measure whether we are causing better learning for the students that we serve.

The fact that we work with individuals who are unique is important here. The Visible Learning list of strategies is not a “plug and play” resource. Different strategies will work better with different students. We need to know our community and build relationships with our students, only then will be able to select the best strategies to move our students forward.

The structure that we have been using in order to remind us to evaluate the impact of our interventions has been the Learning Sprint. Having a structure allows us to move through different phases of new initiative without missing important pieces. I have found having a plan and a template to be extremely effective in organizing the professional learning in our school.

All of this evaluation takes place inside of the collective understanding of what a year’s worth of growth is. This is another piece of the Visible Learning study that I have come back to over and over. All teachers need to have an understanding of what progress looks like.

I have encountered many situations where a teacher struggles with knowing what a year’s worth of growth is for a student that is below their grade level. For instance, a grade 5 teacher is working with a student who is 2 years below grade level, but they don’t have a great understanding of the progression for grade 3 students.

This is where working with our colleagues and the psychological trust at a school become an advantage. The information is shared to be able to come to an understanding of what progress we should target. We can also share the strategies that may work well for students who are working at that level.

The concept of having a conception of a year’s worth of growth has remained incredibly important in my practice. In our school, we have students with a range of abilities in each class. In order to have each student achieve a year’s worth of growth, we need to know what progress looks like.

Our school’s conception of a year’s worth of growth is something we are working on and will continue to improve over the years. It must constantly be revisited in order to maintain understanding. As new staff arrive and leave, we are continually updating and refining our vision.

I encourage you to pick up Visible Learning again and to review the updated versions. I also encourage you to “Know Thy Impact”.