Linking Lesson Plans to Practice Plans

Earlier this summer, Carol Tomlinson helped me form a bridge between the teaching and coaching worlds in her article, "Mastering the Game". Her article is based on a radio talk show conversation that featured Sven Groeneveld, a renowned tennis coaching legend, and his insight as to why he is so successful as a coach. Although the connection between the traits of a successful coach and an effective teacher may not be all too obvious at first, there are eight indisputable traits that help separate the haves and havenots in both the coaching and teaching worlds.

Tomlinson summarizes the eight traits that are essential for any coach or teacher to keep in mind if they truly want for their athlete or student to exceed expectations.

1. Recognize that everyone possesses the ability to achieve far more than what they think they are capable of reaching. 
2. Know the difference between dreams and goals. Dreams are intangible thoughts and goals are tangible outcomes that you can chase down. 
3. It is vital to master both hard skills (mechanics and fundamentals) & soft skills (grit, dedication, desire...). 
4. Hold athletes and students accountable for their actions. 
5. Refuse to give in when an athlete/student gives up on a challenging task.
6. Recognize differences in learning strategies and adapt to these differences in order to teach most effectively. 
7. Observe and analyze athletes/students to identify their strengths and weaknesses, so that you can form an effective plan of action. 
8. Remember that it is not about getting our names in the limelight, we do it all for the kids.

While these eight traits may seem relatively simple in nature, they work together to form the foundation of a teacher or coach, who is both successful and meaningful. You can view the original piece here on Edutopia. 

Collaborative Pinterest Board...?

via

I finally gave into the whole Pinterest phenomena a few weeks back after having spent a number of years as a devoted Evernote user. Without going into too much detail, or offering too much praise, Pinterest is pretty darn awesome! First off, it's 100x more social than Evernote, so it is far easier to interact with others and see what my friends on Pinterest are sharing. On the same note, I decided to create a new board, which I titled "Teacher Tidbits", as a place to gather all sorts of "stuff" related to teaching and life in and out of the classroom. However, I quickly discovered that I could invite fellow pinners to not only follow my new board, but also join me in a collaborative effort by adding their findings to the board. While I may be a bit behind the Pinterest curve, this is an awesome feature that makes it crazy easy for 'younger' educators like myself to share classroom resources that we find interesting.

Follow Andrew Roche's board Teacher Tidbits on Pinterest.

Summer Camp & the 4-C's (Part 1)

More Than Just Fun & Games at Summer Camp

Today’s world is more complex than ever and it is full of challenges that require a new skill set in order to achieve success. This skill set, which is often collectively known as the 4-C’s, consists of achieving mastery in the art of efficient communication, cohesive collaboration, precise critical thinking, and genuine creativity. These skills are an essential component that students need to possess in order to achieve success in the competitive world in which we live. However, it is challenging to present or master the 4-C’s effectively in a traditional academic setting.

The 4-C’s: The Keys to Success in the 21st Century

1. Communication—Students communicate effectively both face-to-face. They are able to organize their thoughts and findings, and share these effectively. They communicate well both orally and in writing.
2. Collaboration—Students work effectively and respectfully with diverse groups to solve problems and accomplish a common goal. They assume shared responsibility for completing tasks. Team efforts are “greater than the sum of their parts”; individuals working alone could do student teams accomplish better results than.
3. Critical Thinking—Students are able to analyze, evaluate, and understand complex systems; investigate questions for which there are no clear-cut answers; evaluate different points of view or sources of information; draw appropriate conclusions based on evidence and reasoning; and apply strategies to solve problems.
4. Creativity—Students generate and improve on original ideas and also work creatively with others. They are able to generate and refine solutions to complex problems or tasks based on synthesis, analysis, and then combine or present what they have learned in new and original ways.

One of the major goals today for educators everywhere is to prepare their students for the “real world,” so that students can not only compete, but are also capable of thriving. There are a number of innovative methods available to teachers for use in the classroom, such as Project Based Learning (PBL) and authentic assessment, both of which aim to develop a meaningful environment that promotes the development and mastery of the 4-C’s. While these techniques excel in preparing students for success outside the classroom, there is a major flaw present in many classrooms. Teachers have a limited amount of control over whether their students find the lessons interesting.

Regardless of subject or grade level, it is vital that teachers succeed in capturing and maintaining their student’s attention and interest. One of the main sources of the problem at hand is that the majority of lessons typically occur in formal academic settings—such as classrooms or lecture halls—and the lessons become less meaningful due to the student’s perception of the unappealing nature of the environment in which they learn. Since it is clearly necessary for students to gain meaningful experience in working with the 4-C’s, it is essential to present these skills in a way that both welcoming and entertaining in a sense.

Continue on to Part 2 of "Summer Camp & the 4-C's"

Icing on the Cake

Since the first week or so of March, I have been fortunate enough to work with a group of young men on the lacrosse field, as both the lead coach at the junior varsity level and as an assistant coach at the varsity level. While I sincerely enjoyed reconnecting with the lacrosse community, which I feel head-over-heels for nearly fifteen years ago, it has become clear that there is a strong connection between my coaching responsibilities and my objectives in the classroom as an educator.

My ultimate goals this season were to pass on my love for the game and to set the JV players up for success on the field come game-day, both of which required quite a bit of intentional planning and careful thought before ever setting foot on the practice field. The effort that I put forth into each practice plan shares similar traits to that of an effective lesson plan.

As in most academic settings, it is necessary to gauge what each student-athlete already knows, as well as consider the most effective way to convey the skill or idea that I want them to develop, and lastly, clearly illustrate why it is important to strive for each student-athlete’s utmost best in practice each day.

While I could easily go on about the similarities present between the crafts of coaching and teaching, I benefited from another experience to a much greater degree. Throughout the course of the JV season, I made it a point to confer with the varsity coach every so often to make sure that I was not making any massive mistakes during my first season with a well-established program and he would offer a few bits of advice here and there. These snippets of veteran wisdom were helpful to a point, but I could only take so much away from these passive interactions.

Going over the game plan during a break in the state championship.

My real period of growth did not come about until after the JV campaign had ended when I asked to join the varsity coaching staff. During this time, I was far less active as a coach and took on a role along the lines of an observer for the remainder of the regular season and the playoffs. Although I was not responsible for plotting the course of action each day in practice, I had far more opportunities to engage with Coach C, the varsity coach, and take note of how he engaged with the athletes and structured each workout. My experience on the field during practices and on the sideline during games was a rich learning experience due to Coach C.’s willingness to let me work alongside him and actively observe how he went about engaging with his trade.

The time that I spent on the field during practice and on the sideline during games was meaningful and valuable in many ways. However, I would not have taken away as much as I did had it not been for Coach C’s attitude, openness, and commitment to helping me refine my coaching methods. Furthermore, it is safe to say that I sincerely learned more from Coach C through our conversations away from the field. Although our conversations off the field did not always directly relate to lacrosse or coaching, I managed to usually walk away wanting to try something different in practice or re-think my current approach to guiding the development of the athletes under my supervision.

My alma mater retreats off the field after my new lacrosse family emerged victorious in the State Championship!

Overall, my experience with Coach C is a near perfect example of an effective mentorship. However, the quality of the mentorship could have been better if Coach C had had an opportunity to observe my coaching methods in person, but scheduling conflicts between practice times for the varsity and JV teams made this difficult. Regardless of Coach C’s inability to observe my coaching tactics on more than just a couple occasions, he made it a point to welcome me onto his field and share his wealth of experience with me. Most importantly, he was flat out passionate about helping me, a young coach, develop and mature as a leader and guide on the field.

The Lost Art of Citizenship

This time last year I suffered from a lethal plague known as senioritis and all I could think about was walking across the stage to receive my undergraduate degree at graduation in just a few weeks. I struggled to convince myself into going to the majority of my classes, because the warm spring weather was just far too welcoming, but there were a handful of classes that I simply refused to even consider skipping…my political science classes.

Throughout my undergraduate studies, each of the political science courses in which I enrolled, forced me to take a simple question and transform it into a semester long adventure that was both complex and intricate. Here are a few examples of questions that left me scratching my head and questioning everything that I had previously learned and experienced:

• What is citizenship? 
• How do civil rights differ from civil liberties? 
• Who’s watching and why do they care?

Each of these simple, one-sentence, questions fueled an entire semesters worth of meaningful discussions and I found myself engrossed in the material because I was interacting with an academic realm that I had never really had a chance to explore…Civics and Citizenship.

It turns out that I am not alone here. According to William Damon, young adults who actively engage in their community as a citizens are a rare find today. In his article, Failing Liberty 101, Damon highlights the overall sense of apathy that the rising generation exhibits when dealing with the genre of civics and fulfilling their duties as a citizen.

Being American is not really special...I don't find being an American citizen very important

Some high school age students feel that “being American is not really special” and they “don’t find being an American citizen very important.” This general indifference towards citizenship, paired with an utter disregard for the countless sacrifices that the previous generations of Americans made in order to protect our rights as American citizens is simply disturbing.

It would be easy to blame the rising generation for their ignorance and watch as our society spirals downward into anarchy…and eventually despotism, but that will not do anyone any good. Rather, I feel that it is worthwhile to figure out why the rising generation…my generation…can simply care less about our duties as American citizens.

Around the time that our nation was born, Thomas Jefferson firmly believed that the central purpose of any education should be to encourage students to further their understanding and practice of civic virtue. Jefferson’s educational philosophy is all but extinct today since we rely so heavily on standardized test scores and focus our efforts on teaching students to excel in math and reading.

Now I do not want to go too far into the topic of standardized testing, but these cookie cutter assessments simply gauge how well an individual can preform tasks that are required to survive in today’s world—reading, math, science, etc. Students of all ages engage with the skills needed to succeed on standardized tests everyday…a person simply cannot live a meaningful life if they cannot read street signs or effectively exchange currency to buy food.

To preserve the republic we must love it…everything depends on establishing this love in a republic; and to inspire it ought to be the principal business of education. — Montesquieu

Citizenship is not an innate skill, so students need to formally learn what it means to be a citizen, and they need to engage with this material via personal interactions. First, it is vital that students develop a sense of civic purpose, such that they care enough about upholding their duties as a citizen that they are willing to act.

Jefferson provides a clear understanding of how true civic purpose appears to the common person as he quotes Montesquieu; “to preserve the republic we must love it…everything depends on establishing this love in a republic; and to inspire it ought to be the principal business of education.” The question still remains, how can we teach students about citizenship when we are already overwhelmed with mastering the art of standardized testing?

*Written in response to William Damon's Failing Liberty 101 | Click Here to View Article*

21st Century Skills: Socrates' Legacy

When technology pairs up with Socratic inquiry, students have an opportunity to start a purposeful conversation—with the world.

The presence of personal electronic devices was a rare occurrence in the classroom a few years ago, but now it is difficult to find a classroom where there are not personal electronic devices. Students of all ages today are familiar with these digital information cornucopias and many schools have gone so far as to adopt BYOD policies. These 21st Century devices, specifically laptops and tablets, have become common sights in the classroom and are capable of causing changes that compare to the likes of Guttenberg’s printing press. As with Guttenberg’s press, laptops and tablets provide the average person with access to immense amounts of information and allows for learning to occur on multiple levels.

While the academic and social benefits that stem from democratized access to the mass amounts of digital information in the virtual world, they are by no means free. Unlike books, which field experts typically review for accuracy and overall quality, the digital realm of information is essentially unmonitored and full of disorganized and fragmented information. Furthermore, any notion of interpersonal interaction is void and null since people can access virtual information anywhere and anytime, which only supports the growth of the sense of individualism that is consuming our culture. This magnified sense of individualism may conjure images of a desolate, dark, future where the Greek polis crumbles, causing its citizens to return to the hills. However, there is hope, so fear not.

This process requires literacy, a personal and communal discipline that appears to be in decline...fewer of us are reading books, more of us are surfing the Web

The Issue at Hand
The central issue that we face is that our society is not prepared to handle the complex and diverse world that we about to enter. In order to survive in this more fast paced world, we need to alter how we think and upgrade our brains so they are more fluid, flexible, focused, and innovative. Four major skills will play a key role in this neurological upgrade, and it is vital that educators adopt and weave the essence of these skills into the everyday curriculum so that students attain some degree of mastery in the skills that are vital to their survival in the 21st century. The four essential skills to achieving success in the 21st century are Critical Reflection, Empirical Reasoning, Collective Intelligence,Metacognition.

The 4 Big Skills

1. Critical Reflection is a process that allows people to see the world from multiple viewpoints and consider alternative outcomes while problem solving. Cookson warns that it is vital that we learn to “distinguish fact from factoid” as we enter into the age of electronic learning due to the vast amounts of data and information that we have available at our fingertips. 
2. Empirical Reasoning relies on the use of testable hypotheses using observable data. This method is more reliable than widely accepted supernatural explanations for phenomena that are unexplained. The practice of Empirical Reasoning is a form of social responsibility, thus it important that people hold each other accountable to stick with the facts and avoid falling back upon the whimsical notions rooted in supernatural beliefs. 
3. Collective Intelligence speaks to the idea that it is of great value that we not only recognize, but also accept that all humans are capable of intellectual thought. As a global culture, we need to step away from the idea that education is a personal matter and embrace the potential that lies within the global network of minds and the ability that each individual has to contribute to the overall betterment of the global community. 
4. Metacognition—or the act of thinking about thinking—is of great importance because we need to assess the general quality of our ability to think, rather than focus on whether or not students can memorize material. If we learn to critique our ability to think and process information, we will without question become more efficient thinkers who are also well versed in the art of problem solving.

21st Century Libraries
In order to fully buy into and accept the 21st century mind, we will need a way share every tidbit of information that we have so that everyone can access it via their portable devices. Cookson believes that a new electronic learning environment will replace the “linear, text-bound culture of conventional schools.” Trends in the classroom show that this is 100% true so far. Knowledge is no longer a fixed value as it was during the age of print. Rather, knowledge has become more “fluid, fast, and far more democratic” due to the rise of the electronic learning age. Instead of the dusty libraries that we are accustomed to today, we need virtual libraries that “host genuine knowledge and enable learners of all ages to interact with each other in knowledge creation”—this is evident in the absurd popular approval and use of Wikipedia.

One of the major differences between the print and electronic learning age is the extent of the user ability to interact with the information and other users. Print information was mostly about the user-information interactions and user-to-user conversation was a distant after-thought. This is a stark contrast to learning in the 21st century because the learning focus shifts almost entirely from the user-information interactions to user-to-user conversations. Again, it is important to note that the majority of information in our new virtual libraries does not undergo the same peer review scrutiny as information in print form, but at the same time anyone can review, challenge, support, or argue the information in theory.

Socrates believed that learning came from within and that the best and most lasting way to bring latent knowledge to awareness was through the process of continual questioning and unconventional inquiry. For Socrates, answers were always steps on the way to deeper questions.

So What Now?
The four essential skills and the advancements in education–related technology may seem disconnected, but the connection is actually quite simple. Peter Cookson reminds us about what Socrates had to say about education—“Socrates believed that learning came from within and that the best and most lasting way to bring latent knowledge to awareness was through the process of continual questioning and unconventional inquiry. For Socrates, answers were always steps on the way to deeper questions.” This understanding of effective learning through the process of seemingly endless questions and quirky inquiry goes hand-in-hand with the development of the virtual libraries and instant communication because individuals can ask questions to the entire world and have a plethora of response in a matter of minutes potentially. This may not seem like a big deal, but imagine a 3rd grade class in Boston conversing with a 3rd grade class in Moscow via Skype in real time…this is global learning at its finest. While Socrates may find the technology a bit frightening at first, I am sure that he would approve of what these mind-blowing devices and endless virtual libraries allow for in the realm of academia.

References

Cookson, Peter W. "What Would Socrates Say." Educational Leadership September 2009.

Careful Planning

While I realize the value of putting forth a solid effort when it comes to lesson planning, I just recently recognized the true worth of these meticulous plans when I put together the first weeks worth of practice plans for my lacrosse team. With just five days of practice until our first game this weekend, I became a little anxious since I have yet to install a base offense or defense, and just thinking about running a man-up and man-down unit makes me shiver. Regardless of the short period of time before our first game, it is simply a matter of conveying my lacrosse knowledge to the players so that they can compete to the best of their ability come Saturday.

Just like a lesson plan in the classroom, each drill that I run in practice needs to be meaningful and provide the sense of a game-time situation. This season is a big shift from my experience last season since most of these kids have grown up with the game and have an idea of how to play for the most part. This is blessing since I do not have to start with the pure fundamentals of the game, but it is also a curse since there are higher expectations than what I worked with last year. Aside from the dual nature of this new program, I am hopeful that I can transition the 'power' on the field from my control to the players rather quickly, which means that I will only have to fine-tune things along the way after I get the foundation in place.

The Advantage of the Underdog

The 1980 US Olympic team celebrates their triumph over the legendary
USSR national team in the semifinals of the medal round at Lake Placid.

It seems that nearly every contest today is either evenly matched or similar to the epic battle between David and Goliath whether it is in the classroom, on the athletic field, or at a conference table. Most spectators tend to cheer in favor of the modern day Goliath without question and fail to even acknowledge the possibility that the David archetype may have what it takes to emerge victorious when the dust settles. These superficial mismatches come in all sorts of shapes and sizes: a family deciding between a pure bred dog and a pure mutt, the 1980 US men’s Olympic hockey team squaring off with the Soviet Union at Lake Placid, or a typically reserved student challenging the comment of a standout student in class. These differing levels of ability and expectations often determine how observers perceive the situation at hand, and tend to dictate that the pure bred, USSR team, and the standout student ought to emerge triumphant.

However, the underdogs—the mutt, the US hockey team, and the reserved student—more often than not tend to have some sort of intangible trait that could potentially provide an advantage of some sort over the physically and tactically superior opponent. This intangible, and possibly non-traditional, trait, which I like to think of as an X-factor, is what gives marginalized parties an edge. The mutt knows the true meaning of love, the group of college hockey players traveled to Lake Placid as a band of brothers, and the quiet student observes and takes in what the rest of the class says and does. These three examples, along with Gladwell’s thoughts, offer more than enough support in favor of adopting the practice of pursuing objectives via non-traditional methods.

Why Go Into Teaching?

Reading aloud to a 3rd grade class at my alma mater elementary school.

Having been a part of the “real world” for nearly a full year now since completing my undergraduate studies last May, I have had ample time to consider why I find the profession of teaching so intriguing. Many of my friends chuckle when they picture me in the classroom and ask why I opted to not put my political science studies to good use and pursue a career in politics. While I may physically tower above my students in most situations, which is worth a hearty laugh, I feel that dedicating my efforts to the realm of education will yield results that are concrete in nature than any job in the political sphere.

Now you are probably thinking, “Yea right! Politicians do far more in a single day than teachers do in a full year!” This is correct in some ways—politicians essentially operate the complex machine that keeps our government running. However, I ask the following questions in response to your statement. How did our politicians get to where they are today? How did they learn the skills that are required to read and write legislature? Where did they gain invaluable experience in regards to interacting with their peers around the lunch table? Who taught them what it means to be passionate about something?

These are all fundamental skills that even the most accomplished and prestigious politicians learned from their teachers when they were in school. Thus, in response to my classmates who questioned my professional decision, I propose the following idea—teaching is the most fundamental profession and provides the necessary foundation for every other profession. This astonishing impact, in addition to my sincere desire to work with students in a meaningful way, are the two main reasons why I wish to devote my professional efforts to guiding the growth and development of the next generation of great minds.