LOUISIANA LEADS 2006

1. LOUISIANA LEADS 2006

2. Changing Teacher Behavior Through Positive Support

3. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Stenhouse Publishers 2004 ISBN #1 57110 3899

4. Choice Words • Are couched by • Positive behavior support • Interaction • Possibilities • History • Action • Social sensibility • Logic

5. Anticipated Outcomes • The participants will become aware of • the effects teacher language has on the intellectual development of their students, and • the effects a principal’s language has on performance of his or her teachers • The participants will explore words and phrases that have considerable power over classroom conversations

6. The Language of Influence in Teaching • Think carefully about the language we use to offer our students the best learning environment we can • Vygotsky (1978), it is that “children grow into the intellectual life around them” (p.88), [and so too do teachers] • Speaking is as much an action as hitting someone with a stick, or hugging them (Austin 1962)

7. Attributes To Be Instilled • Noticing and Naming • Identity • Agency and Becoming Strategic • Flexibility and Transfer (or Generalizing) • Knowing • An Evolutionary, Democratic Learning Community

8. Noticing and Naming When people are being apprenticed into an activity of any sort, they have to figure out the key features of the activity and their significance How can principals help teachers with this endeavor?

9. Noticing and Naming • “Did anyone notice…?” Normalize the practice of trying out new possibilities- stretching beyond what one already controls How can a principal recognize teachers for trying out new ideas, and stretching?

10. Noticing and Naming • “I see you know how to spell the beginning of that word.” Confirms what has been successful (so it will be repeated) Builds confidence to consider new learning

11. Noticing and Naming • “Remember the first week when we had to really work at walking quietly? Now you guys do it automatically” (Day 2002, p. 105) Shows children [teachers] that they have changed as community members, learners, readers, and writers Reveals that they are in the process of becoming Children can project future learning

12. Noticing and Naming • “What kind of text is this?” Implies that there are other kinds of text to notice Opens a conversation about classifying things, including articulating the logic of the classification

13. Noticing and Naming • “You know what I heard you doing just now, Claude? Putting yourself in her place. You may not have realized it. You said, ‘Will she ever shut up?’ Which is what Zinn is thinking.” (Johnston, Layden, and Powers 999, p. 20) Draw to the consciousness of the student [teacher] and attention of the class [faculty], a productive cognitive strategy

14. Noticing and Naming • “I want you to tell me how it (group discussion) went… What went well? … What kinds of question (were raised)?” (Johnston, Bennett, and Cronin 2002a, p. 150) Draws attention to the process of group discussion Draws attention to productive aspects of the process Builds affinity Draws attention to the idea that there are different kinds of questions

15. Noticing and Naming • “Write down a line you wish you had written.” • [Write down a suggestion that your teachers would more likely take action upon] Turns children’s attention to the qualities of words while it implies (insists, actually) that they all want to write wonderful words - to be authors Loving the line is a verbal expression of an emotional response, all interactions are laden with affect, and children [teachers] attend to these expressions as much as to any other source of information

16. Noticing and Naming • “What are you noticing?... Any other patterns or thing that surprise you?” (Johnston and Backer 2002, p. 181) Assumes something about “you”- that you are a noticing kind of person When they notice something, it is worth bringing up for discussion (even at odd times)

17. Identity Building an identity means coming to see in ourselves the characteristics of particular categories (and roles) of people and developing a sense of what it feels like to be that sort of person and belong in certain social spaces

18. Identity • “What a talented young poet you are.” • [What a talented teacher you are.] (followed-up by a person-specific example) Identities provide students [teachers] with a sense of their responsibilities, and reasonable ways to act, particularly toward one another and toward the object of study

19. Identity • “I wonder if, as a writer, you’re ready for this.” Asks the child [teacher] to think about learning in terms of development or maturity Invites a desire to be viewed as having an expanded maturity

20. Identity • “I bet you’re proud of yourself!” Invites a child [teacher] to attend to internal feelings of pride, building upon the sense of agency, and at the same time attaches an internal motivation to the activity

21. Identity • “What are you doing as a writer today?” • What are you doing as a teacher today? Insists on a commitment Student [teacher] is gently nudged to rehearse a narrative with herself as a writer/reader/speaker/actor

22. Identity • “What have you learned most recently as a reader [teacher]?” Creates a learning history, which is an antidote for students who think they are not good and have always been not good

23. Agency and Becoming Strategic The feeling that if they (children) [teachers] act and act strategically to accomplish their goals they have a sense of AGENCY

24. Agency and Becoming Strategic • “How did you figure that out?” Invites them to review the process, or strategies, used to accomplish a goal or solve a problem When children or teachers articulate their strategic actions, they teach their strategies to others

25. Agency and Becoming Strategic • “What problems did you come across today?” Implies that it is normal to encounter problems and to view them as places to learn

26. Agency and Becoming Strategic • “How are you planning to go about this?” Planning means organizing Assumes the person already has a plan

27. Agency and Becoming Strategic • “Where are you going with this piece (of writing)?” Opens the space for him to imagine such a possibility for this piece

28. Agency and Becoming Strategic • “Which part are you sure about and which part are you not sure about?” Draws attention to the partially successful and reminds us that the experience of success is necessary for developing a sense of agency

29. Agency and Becoming Strategic • “You really have me interested in this character (in your writing) because of the things he says, and if you show me how he says them and what he looks like, I will get an even stronger sense of him.” Shows what went well through its effect on the audience, showing the agency of authorship Sets up a possible future

30. Agency and Becoming Strategic • That’s like Kevin’s story. He started off telling us his character is a lonely boy to get us caring about the main character. You (looking at Kevin) made a conscious choice” (Johnston, Bennett, and Cronin 2002a, p. 155) Behavior reflects a choice Help them think through the alternatives and their consequences

31. Agency and Becoming Strategic • “Why…” Develops persuasion and argumentation abilities, and logical thinking Helps them develop the consciousness and hence ownership of their choices Brings to consciousness the feelings, intentions, relationships, motives, logic, values, and plans that lie beneath action and are the hidden levers of narrative

32. Agency and Becoming Strategic • “Why would an author [teacher or student] do something like that?” (Johnston, Bennett, and Cronin 2002a, p. 155). Views writing/speaking/acting as fundamentally intentional and rife with decisions Provides the grounds for critical literacy Opens the possibility of making word choice, ideology, and private interest important when reading/speaking/acting Builds a bridge between reading and writing that helps to generalize what is learned in one to become useful in the other

33. Agency Matters Children who doubt their competence set low goals and choose easy tasks, and they plan poorly. When they face difficulties, they become confused, lose concentration, and start telling themselves stories about their own incompetence In what ways do teachers do the same thing?

34. Flexibility and Transfer (or Generalizing) The ability to generalize learning from one situation or problem to another

35. Flexibility and Transfer • “One of the things people do when they start a story is think of what they know. Mathematicians do this too… Let’s try it.” (Allington and Johnston 2002a, p. 180). It reduces the magnitude of the problem to be solved Puts the new problem in the context of old, already-solved problems Opens the possibility of more connections among the new knowledge and what is already known

36. Flexibility and Transfer • “How else…” Sustains the possibility of choice (and thus agency) while maintaining a sense of flexibility- there’s always another way Reminds that writers always make choices about what they include and exclude from their writing

37. Flexibility and Transfer • “That’s like…” Draws attention to connections It makes metaphors

38. Flexibility and Transfer • “What if…?” Expands the contexts in which particular strategies might be used, or particular identities might hold sway Develops ability to engage in hypothetical talk and abstract thinking Gives others the chance to understand the possibility of multiple versions of reality

39. Flexibility and Transfer • Playful language Takes the pressure off language and literate practice and invites experimentation with alternative practices and realities Reveals the internal structure of words as an object of interest rather than of labor Develops interest in language

40. Knowing Children play a more active role in the ownership and construction of knowledge

41. Knowing • “Any questions? Let’s start with these.” (Teacher writes them on a chart). Students become increasingly good at asking interesting questions

42. Knowing • (Silence) “Wait time” “Thinking time” Research shows that extending thinking time is positively related to more student talk, more sustained talk, and more “higher order” thinking

43. Knowing • “Thanks for straightening me out” (Adams 1995, p. 137) Helps others correct misconceptions

44. Knowing • “That’s a very interesting way of looking at it. I hadn’t thought about it that way. I’ll have to think about it some more” (Johnston and Backer 2002, p. 42). It asserts to the group that the teacher [principal] does not have all the answers, that perspectives are bound to vary, that stretching to understand different perspectives is expected and valued, and that students [teachers] have important things to say

45. Knowing • “How did you know?” Invites a narrative about production of knowledge, checking warrants and theorizing Turns the emphasis toward knowing rather than knowledge

46. Knowing • “How could we check?” Cross-check sources and warrants Begin to ask themselves questions expected of them Boosts confidence in their construction of knowledge

47. Knowing • “Would you agree with that?” Sets up the public need to articulate the logic of one’s position Students [teachers] articulate their logic, making others try to be logical Increases social imagination

48. Knowing • “Is that an observation or conjecture?” (Johnston and Backer 2002, p. 47) Points out to them the human tendency to add layers of meaning to observation

49. Knowing • “Never believe everything I say. Never believe everything any adult says” (Wharton-McDonald and Williamson 2002, p. 82) Confirms that nobody has a corner on truth and that authority should always be questioned, checked, and warrants sought

50. An Evolutionary, Democratic Learning Community • “Children grow into the intellectual life around them” • Intellectual life is fundamentally social • Teachers use language to build caring and respectful learning communities; communities that are playful, but in which participants take each other’s ideas seriously in the process of getting things done