How To Post

Hi everyone~

To make this a user-friendly resource for all of us, here are some tips:

1) Sign in at the top right (you can use your HTH gmail login and password) and click on New Post. You'll need to create a separate post for each article/book/chapter you review.

2) Enter the title of the article/book/chapter as the title of your post.

3) Make sure your post includes the full APA citation near the top.

4) Your annotation can take a variety of forms. Try the following two suggestions out and see which works best for you:

Example 1: brief paragraph describing and critically assessing the source for quality and relevance; a list of quotes and/or concepts relevant to your research/practice; and any sources cited within the text that you want to find. See "Sample Post #1: The Differentiated Classroom" post.

Example 2: summary of the work, evaluation of methods and findings, and reflection on relevance to your practice. See "Sample Post #2: If you know our names it helps" post.

5) Finally, and most importantly, assign a couple labels (keywords) to your post. This is what allows us to search for all the articles on motivation, engagement, etc. If you don't attach a label to the bottom of your post, it will get buried in the ether, never to seen or searched for again. It will be very sad. Where you can, use the labels already created and shown on the right sidebar. Fewer labels means broader searches (i.e. we don't want 5 labels that say digital literacy in 5 different ways; just keep it simple and say "digital literacy." This makes it easier for everyone to search and find what they want). If you do create a new label it will magically appear in the sidebar.

6) Publish your post, congratulate yourself for sharing your work with the world, and search for more work useful to you by clicking on the labels or by using the Search box!

If you have any questions about how to use this blog, leave a comment here! Happy posting!

Tips for Finding What you Need in the Library

Hello everyone~

Please share the "tips" you discovered for using databases and finding great articles/books by adding a comment to this post. This way, we can all look back here for quick reminders of what worked best!

S

Drive, The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Pink, D. H. (2011). Drive, the surprising truth about what motivates us. New York, New York: Riverhead Books.

This book reflects on the change and differing ideas of what motivates us between traditional thought of Motivation 2.0 (the carrot stick method) and Motivation 3.0 (intrinsic motivation to create and contribute to a better world). We are seeing a shift between a Type X behavior (behavior driven by external rewards) and Type I behavior (behaviors powered by autonomy, mastery, and purpose). Although there is strong scientific evidence that Motivation 3.0 has a more powerful affect on individual performances, Motivation 2.0 still has a strong hold on the way businesses and schools run. With modern society comes modern challenges and a shift needs to be made to help motivate children and individuals in today's world. This book is hard to put down because of the endless mismatches of what science knows and what businesses and schools do.

Mindset The New Psychology of Success

Annotation provided by Kathleen Blough

Dweck, Carol S. (2006). Mindset. The New Psychology of Success.

New York: Ballatine Books.

Response/Analysis:

Mindset breaks down the human thinking into two different mindsets: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. A person with the fixed mindset believes that your qualities are set, you are what you are and you better prove to everyone what you can do. The growth mindset person is based on the idea that through your efforts you can achieve just about anything. Throughout this book were examples of people with fixed and growth mindsets. Relating to real people made this book easier to follow and connect to. Looking at the actions of John McEnroe and Michael Jordan helped me see the difference between how people think. Cultivating a growth mindset is key to success. Knowing about the two mindsets help one start “thinking and reacting to problems in new ways”(p. 46). Reading this book helped me see and view people differently and that my students come to me with one or the other. Most of the time, we have students who have been groomed to think that there is only one way of doing things, which is the fixed mindset. I feel parents and our educational system have promoted this kind of thinking. What we need people to be aware of is which mindset has the potential for success in the future. We must remember, “people may start with different temperaments and different aptitudes, but it is clear that experience, training, and personal effort take them the rest of the way”(p.5). We need to work toward a growth mindset, one in which we are happy to learn and not fear failure.

Relevant Quotes:

These quotes come from the chapter titled, “Sports: The Mindset of a Champion.”

“All of these people had character. None of them thought they were special people, born with the right to win. They were people who worked hard, who learned how to keep their focus under pressure, and who stretched beyond their ordinary abilities when they had to.”(p. 97)

“Those with the growth mindset found success in doing their best, in learning and improving.”(p. 98)

“Those with the growth mindset found setbacks motivating. They’re informative. They’re a wake-up call.”(p. 99)

“People with the growth mindset in sports (as in pre-med chemistry) took charge of the processes that bring success—and that maintain it.”(p.101)

Response:

These quotes sum up the idea surrounding mindset. If we can change the way we view problems, and if we can view ideas in a more productive way, then our lives will be richer. I feel that if people were aware of how we cultivate thinking, we might have more people with the growth mindset and our society in general would be more productive and not in such dire troubles. Of course, this is a fixed mindset belief, but I know that if I can be more aware of how I think, then I will make sure I create a culture in my classroom where strategies are in place for students to feel empowered by problems, not threatened by them.

Switch

Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2010). Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. New York: Broadway Books.


Summary:
Switch investigates how to make lasting changes in our lives and careers.  The authors use the analogy of the Elephant as our emotional side, the Rider as our rational side and the Path as the environment we want to create change in (home or work).  In order to make a change that will endure we must "direct the rider", "motivate the elephant" and "shape the path".  Finding "bright spots" helps to focus the Rider on what's already working.  In order to get the Elephant motivated we need to appeal to people's emotional side and break down the change we want to see into small manageable pieces.  The authors provide extensive real world examples of people making a switch and provide a detailed explanation of why it worked.  
What Struck Me:
The idea of Solutions-focused therapy really resonated with me.  So often in education we look at what is wrong; how can we fix it.  However, focusing on what it would look life if the problem was solved makes so much more sense!  Guiding our students who struggle to look at situations where they are successful is more productive and helps them strive to attain that feeling more often.  
Quotes:
"If you are leading a change effort, you need to remove the ambiguity form your vision of change...script the critical moves, to translate aspirations into actions."

(p. 62)

"When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur...Don't look for the quick, big improvement.  Seek the small improvement one day at time."  (p.144)

"The people who change have clear direction, ample motivation, and a supportive environment.  In other words, when change works, it's because the Rider, the Elephant and the Path are all aligned in support of the switch."  (p. 255)

Questions:

How can we "shrink the change", as educators, with something as big as the achievement gap?

What are some negative behaviors we'd like to change at our schools and how can we help shape the path?

Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us

Summary of the Drive’s main ideas
In his most recent book, Drive, Daniel Pink asserts that there is a fundamental disconnect between what science knows about motivation and the carrot-and-stick approach that businesses, governments and non-profits utilize to motivate their employees.  He argues that instead of the extrinsic rewards that managers have used to incentivize efficiency and effectiveness among workers in jobs comprised of predominantly algorithmic tasks, today organizations whose workers do mostly heuristic work would do well to give their workers opportunities for autonomy, mastery, and purpose, the constitutive elements of intrinsic motivation.  

3 Quotes that struck me and my responses to them

“Salary, contract payments, some benefits, a few perks are what I call “baseline rewards.” If someone’s baseline rewards aren’t adequate or equitable her focus will be on the unfairness of her situation and the anxiety of her circumstance… The best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table.” (33)  I was struck by this idea because it provides a nuanced view of how organizations should compensate their employees.  He is saying fair pay is a necessary, not sufficient, condition for motivating people in jobs that entail heuristic work.  Pay should be high enough to take the conversation of money off the table.  

This also strikes me because it flies in the face of the calls by many in the education reform community for pay-for-performance compensation schemes in teaching.  However, if we tie pay to performance on narrow indicators of student achievement, such as high stakes tests, teachers will be forced to narrow their focus to teaching to that test.  If the goal of education were to produce outstanding test-takers and millions of students who are excellent at algorithmic tasks, this might be an effective pathway toward achieving that goal.  But since the goals of American education seem to be to produce articulate scholars who can succeed in college and beyond, active citizens who are prepared to participate in a democracy, and innovative thinkers who can step into high-skill jobs that involve predominantly heuristic tasks that the 21-century economy demands, performance pay and teaching to the test seem antithetical to our goals.  Let me start by saying that I believe people who advocate performance pay believe that it will close the achievement gap and reward teachers for results.  As Jay-Z said in his song “American Gangster,” “Ain't nothin’ wrong with the aim, just gotta change the target.”  We can close both our nation’s achievement gap as well as the global achievement gap, but it’s not going to come from reform efforts that try to incentivize teachers to do a better job by paying those who achieve high test scores with more money.  That exactly how to turn teaching into clerical work, not inspiring innovation.  

“Perhaps management isn’t responding to our supposedly natural state of passive inertia. Perhaps management is one of the forces that switching our default setting and producing that state.” (87)  This quote struck me because it flips our traditional assumptions about human nature as tabula rasa, a blank slate, that needs to be managed and directed.  Pink flips this idea to assert that our state of nature is to be actively engaged and curious, a behavior we see from babies and children until they have it managed out of them (most often in the early school years).  That is to say, management produces passive inertia or docile bodies (to borrow a phrase from Foucault) that then necessitates managers to direct them.  Management is not only an effect of passive inertia but also its cause.  This has powerful implications for work with adults and students in schools.  It’s the difference between telling your students your classroom rules on the first day and co-constructing norms with them and collaboratively problem-solving as issues arise.  With adults its the difference between a director walking into your classroom and telling you what to do and having your director observe your teaching and engage in a collegial coaching conversation where you identify what went well and areas for growth.

“The single greatest motivator is “making progress in one’s work.” The days that people make progress are the days they feel most motivated and engaged. By creating conditions for people to make progress, shining a light on that progress, recognizing and celebrating progress, organizations can help their own cause and enrich people’s lives.” (127–128) This quote struck me because it is demonstrably true and evident in the work we do at HTMCV.  At our school making progress in my work is what keeps me going.  The conditions that enable us to make progress include our meetings before school and on PD days when we tune projects and look at student work, visit each other’s classrooms and just feel comfortable sharing our work with colleagues.  With students, we build collaborative and supportive classroom culture and create opportunities for them to learn the collaborative skills they need to be successful with projects, as well as building in time for reflection on what works and what doesn’t in our daily work.  In our staff meeting we begin with recognitions that frequently recognize the progress we have made as individuals and as a staff.  With students recognizing progress comes out frequently, especially during SLCs and POLs.  And of course exhibitions are the pinnacle of celebrating progress as a school, a class and as individuals.  

2 Questions
1. What project management structures and techniques have you used to enable students to have maximal autonomy over their task, their time, their technique and their team?

2. Under what conditions or in which circumstances would you support the use of “if-then” rewards in the classroom or school?

Review of The End of Education by Neil Postman

Postman, Neil. The End of Education. New York. Vintage Books. 1995. Print

I decided to write a quote and then follow it with a response for my format. This book had some decent points that were diluted by wordy prose and undocumented "facts".

Relevant Quotes-

“...public education does not serve a public. It creates a public.” (Postman, 18)

I thought this was the most important quote in the book. If politicians subscribed to this view we wouldn’t have underfunded schools or schools that are just hoops for students to jump through. Do we as a society want to create a public of independent thinkers, or do we want compliant workers who are good at following directions. In the late 1940’s and 1950’s, the US was a manufacturing powerhouse. If our high schools churned out workers ready for factory life, then our schools did their job. Our manufacturing base has gone overseas. We now need a public who can get any information they want from the internet after a 1.3 second search. We need to create a public that can process information to determine what is important and how to use the information to make the world a better place.

“Scores are important, but not as important as the process that produces them, a point of view that surprises no one, since America was the first nation to be argued into existence.” (Postman, 84)

Most of the teachers at my school subscribe to this notion. In our gradebooks we emphasize Process, Product, and Content. This de-emphasis on the final product has had a lasting impact on our students. When our students go to college they do not get down if they bomb a test, the realize that they need to try harder and ask for more help.

“How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?”
(Postman, 94)

Postman went on for four pages to describe a state of emergency where the students took charge of major parts of city life. In this city, students ran day care centers, published newspapers, ran transportation services for college students, and basically ran many parts of the city. I was so excited to see where this happened. I stopped my reading and did an extensive googling of this scenario, only to find out several pages later that it was just a fable. Really? I like his point of giving students real world internships and projects where they can make an impact on society. However, Postman;’s argument would have carried more weight if it actually happened on a small scale.


“I do not fail to inform students, by the way, that there has recently emerged at least some (though not conclusive) evidence of a scientific nature that when sick people are prayed for, they do better than those who aren’t” (Postman, 38)

This last quote neatly summarizes why anything Postman writes must be taken with an enormous grain of salt (assuming you can get a large enough grain of salt, and that you can get through the sentence without smashing yourself in the head with a bottle, because he is so wordy. Damn you Postman, you have me doing it now!) Unfortunately, Postman’s citation for this quote led to a dead end of searches. For such a well respected author, I was extremely disappointed when he made a such a controversial statement like that, but had nothing in his citation for it that could back his statement up.

“There is no escaping the fact that when we form a sentence, we are creating a world.” 72

I wish the world Neil Postman would have been a more direct and to the point world. This book was extremely hard to read due to Portman’s long winded prose. In one paragraph he quoted five different philospohers. At times Portman’s writing reminded me of writing papers in 10th grade when I used to jam as many quotes into an essay as possible. Postman makes some very good points, but when you have a sentence like this, one that is constantly interrupted, it becomes hard to create a flow, a flow necessary for the reader to understand your thoughts, and without flow, your point is diluted, a dilution which... hopefully you get my point about Postman’s long winded sentences. Postman does make some good points, but his writing style is so cumbersome that his points get lost in translation. When you have a long winded writing style and you have claims that are not substantiated through your citations, it is hard to take anything else you say seriously.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. (A Review)

Pink, D. H. (2011). Drive, the surprising truth about what motivates us. New York, New York: Riverhead Books.

Summary

The field of pop-psychology is full of books about how to be great leaders and motivators.  Often times, these books are written by business leaders with MBAs who have been successful, business writers who have observed other business leaders becoming successful, psychologists who offer tips on what can make YOU successful, and even entrepreneurs with little formal education in the field of psychology or business documenting what has made them successful.  

Daniel Pink is none of those.  He is a formally trained lawyer, with his juris doctorate from Yale.  He writes from the perspective of somebody who has studied economics in addition to law; his assertions are reasoned and rooted in many economic principles, something sorely missing from many other “motivational” studies.  He writes of his experience studying economics in the early 1980s:  “Economics…was the study of behavior.  [People] were rational calculators of our economic self-interest” (Pink, 24).  He continues by describing how this idea of pursuit of self-interest persisted in law school; there was no way around it – the only factor in decision making was an ongoing calculation of self-interest.  But Pink has somewhat of a crisis of faith in 2002 after the Nobel Prize for economics is given to a psychologist who argued that the idea of the person as a self-interest calculator is simply fiction.  Decision making, and thusly motivation, is much more complicated.

Pink then gives a historiography of motivation.  According to Pink, Motivation 1.0 was all about survival.  Whatever kept you alive was your motivation (Pink, 16).  Motivation 2.0 emerges as societies become more complex.  Motivation 2.0 is all about seeking reward and avoiding punishment (Pink, 16).  Pink then spends approximately the next 50 pages debunking much of the assumptions of Motivation 2.0.  For example, Pink asserts that Motivation 2.0 assumes that “work is inherently not enjoyable” which is why preferred behaviors are rewarded and questionable behaviors are punished (Pink, 29).   But this is really just the tip of the iceberg.  Pink suggests that there are 3 fundamental problems with Motivation 2.0 – people are not only motivated by extrinsic rewards but also by intrinsic purpose, people are not “single minded economic robots,” and finally, in the 21^st century, work is not simply a labor of necessity but is often creative, interesting, and stimulating (Pink, 31).  

The purpose of Pink’s argument is to arrive at what he calls Motivation 3.0.  And, according to Pink, there are two types of people – Type I and Type X.  Type I are intrinsically motivated (Hence the “I” nomenclature) and seek to meet their intrinsic needs and desires.  Type X are motivated primarily by extrinsic rewards (Pink, 75).  Pink is careful to offer a non-judgmental analysis of Type X, but he readily admits that Motivation 3.0 hinges on the emergence of Type I, which Pink argues is the natural state of people and it’s only through learned behavior that we become Type X (Pink, 77).  

Finally, Pink describes the 3 components of Motivation 3.0 – Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.  In his analysis of these three concepts, Pink gives multiple examples of successful businesses that have adopted them as fundamental principles.  He describes the emergence of the ROWE (Results Only Work Environment), which emphasizes autonomy rather than control (Pink, 98).  He uses the example of West Point as an example of mastery which is long term and ongoing (Pink, 122).  He highlights the emergence of a huge Baby Boomer population who seek work beyond the profit margin (Pink, 133).  Pink closes the book with a Toolkit to help the reader, manager, organization that is looking to move from Type X to Type I (Pink, 150-217).

Evaluation

There were multiple points reading through Pink’s book where I found myself thinking about my own experience sitting in economics classes and learning about what is “rational” and “irrational.”  Economics is an natural lens with which to critically examine motivation.  One of components that is consistently missing from many books in the canon of motivation is the acknowledgement of economic principles.  Pink did an interesting thing by addressing these principles, but then disavowing them right away (Pink, 25).  However, Pink is not dismissive of these principles and doesn’t disavow them because they aren’t true.  Rather, he distances his ideas of motivation from economics by using the ideas of Daniel Kahneman, the 2002 Nobel Prize winner described above.  By doing this, Pink gives his argument more credibility by virtue of using this cutting edge economic thinking.  His argument becomes grounded in Kahneman’s radical (but critically supported) idea that people are more than their economic self-interest.  

After imbuing his argument with economic credibility, Pink bases much of his argument on the findings of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, developers of the “Self Determination Theory” (Pink, 69).  Self Determination Theory (SDT), Pink explains, contends that people have three basic psychological needs – “competence, autonomy, and relatedness” (Pink, 70).  Deci and Ryan have contributed to the field of behavioral psychology in many ways, and Pink cites them frequently.  However, Pink has compiled a thorough and well-researched synthesis of many leading thinkers in the fields of behavior psychology, sociology, economics, and clinical research – Mark Lepper, David Greene, Alfie Kohn, Dan Ariely, Teresa Amabile, Richard Titmuss, Pierre Azoulay, Anton Suvorov, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Bruno Frey, and Carol Dweck among others.

Throughout most of the book, Pink is careful to not adhere too closely to one researcher or the other.  He is skilled at synthesizing many different perspectives and narratives into one cogent argument of his own.  However, Pink falls short in two notable occasions, both in the same chapter.  In his chapter titled “Mastery,” Pink bases the first part of the chapter on the idea of “Flow” established by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi.  Flow, is essentially the point when a person is so into what they are doing that “time, place, and even [sense of self] melt away” (Pink, 113).  The second part of the chapter is entirely based on the work of Carol Dweck, and specifically her book Mindset.  While both Czikszentmihalyi and Dweck are touchstone authors in their field, Pink’s argument seems somewhat weak by anchoring so steadfastly to their own.  The other chapters of the book are full of synthesized ideas that support Pink’s idea, and this chapter comes across as simply a summary of two.

Relevance

As I read Drive, there were numerous “Whoa, awesome!” moments.  I thought a lot about my work experience before teaching, and realized why many of my colleagues and I were unhappy.  Our employer definitely adhered to a Motivation 2.0 model, with few carrots, but lots of sticks.  Our employer used “extrinsic motivators like bonuses, incentive plans, and forced rankings” (Pink, 19) to get us to do more, which often led to many of the pitfalls of Motivation 2.0 described by Pink in Chapter 2.  Interestingly, our employer used Motivation 2.0 (rewards and punishment), but wanted us to use Motivation 3.0 (purpose driven, seeking mastery, etc.).  

In terms of how I thought about the classroom, I thought about effective teachers I have seen.  Effective teachers encourage students through Motivation 3.0 without realizing it, and ineffective teachers are often strict adherents to Motivation 2.0.  Many of my own teachers in high school sought control, and were concerned with memorization rather than mastery. 

But, being out of the classroom made me really think about the ideas being presented in Drive.  There are certainly instances of being able to help motivate students (Extra-curricular activities, discipline issues, etc.), but what I thought more about was developing professional development for my adult colleagues.  It would be quite interesting to develop some kind of PD relating to motivating students and really exploring and unpacking what we do in our classrooms and school in order to motivate students.  This concept could relate to our core values, and what makes us, as a professional learning community, different than larger more traditional learning environments.

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard

Annotation provided by Melissa Han

Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2010). Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. New York: Broadway Books.

Main Ideas/Response:

Switch addresses how change in personal or professional areas can be difficult if the mind and heart are in disagreement. The mind or rational side in us is labeled as the Rider. The Rider plans, directs, and is the visionary. But the Rider is limited in strength, focuses on problems, and is paralyzed by ambiguity and choices. The heart or emotional side in us is labeled as the Elephant. The Elephant provides the energy and is moved by feeling. In order for the process of change to successfully take place, the Rider must have clear direction, the Elephant have ample motivation, and the Path be a supportive environment. When all of this happens, then the Rider, Elephant, and Path are in alignment for change or a switch to happen.

I was drawn to the idea of free spaces. Too often free spaces have been breeding ground for dumping negative emotions, which narrows our thoughts. I’d like to explore using these free spaces as a beginning in nurturing positive emotions (i.e. share bright spots) to broaden or build our school. I also realized that in order for bright spots to be effective for change, we need a destination in sight to work towards so that we know what kind of bright spots to be on the look-out for. I’d like to use free spaces to find out why some staff members have remained at our school for so long. What keeps them there? When we share those reasons maybe it’ll lead us to create a new language where we can define a destination or core values that’ll keep us focused and enable us to encourage each other towards it.

Relevant Quotes:

~“People with a growth mindset-those who stretch themselves, take risks, accept feedback, and take the long-term view- can’t help but progress in their lives and career.” (165)

~”Reinforcement does require you to have a clear view of the destination, and it requires you to be savvy enough to reinforce the bright spot behaviors when they happen.” (253)

~”If you want to change the culture of your organization, you’ve got to get the reformers together. They need a free space. They need time to coordinate outside the gaze of the resisters. For a time, at least, you’ve got to permit an “us versus them” struggle to take place. It’s not desirable, but it’s necessary. Think of it as organizational molting.” (247)

Questions:

~How does one utilize the free spaces effectively to draw wider community and common mission if at first it separates?

~How would one utilize action triggers, simple checklists, and rallying the herd to handle the bottom of the “U” situations so that one can get back up to the other end?

Minding the Gaps: Public Genres and Academic Writing

Kittle, P. & Ramay, R. (2010). Minding the Gaps: Public Genres and Academic Writing. What is "College-Level" Writing? Volume 2: Assignments, Reading, and Student Writing Samples (pp. 98-118). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

“... researchers choose topics because the study engages them, they already have prior knowledge and are passionate about their subjects, and they have colleagues who care about the issues under discussion. These are the aspects of academic writing that we would like to reclaim: personal and professional engagement with topics, and connections to real audiences who share concerns and assumptions with the writer" (p.100).

"It can be difficult to reconcile the ideas of authentic writing for an audience in a workplace and the kind of analytical compositions required in many college courses" (p. 101)

“Mallory not only wanted to do well, though - she expected to do well, but even with her strong motivation, she didn’t know how to express her thinking effectively on the page. What she needed was something to help her bridge the gap between what she knew and cared about and the ability to write about her ideas in an engaging way for a real audience" (p.108)

Kittle and Romay continue to reinforce the idea that a mature writer strives to make an authentic connection with the audience. A mature writer will be able to identify the appropriate anecdotes and research for his/her audience.  They support the idea that students should be able to write  “about issues of importance to them” (115) and to be exposed to multiple mentor texts of the genre they are expected to produce. Teachers should scaffold this process so that students practice “replicating particular aspects of the genre before being expected to produce complete drafts” (115). Revision is required of the mature writer, and students should be given the opportunity to connect with a specific audience through publication. They offer up the “My Turn” essay as an effective way to scaffold the student’s process of writing for an authentic audience.

Once again, I see how important connection with one’s audience is. I think that I can do a better job of finding mentor texts for the students to analyze for rhetorical strategy, as well as to use as models. Could I use Kelly Gallagher’s AOW (Article of the Week) to do this? Maybe I could do this during the first semester as a whole group (as I did with the snapshot narratives) more frequently, and then encourage them to find their own through their inquiry project? This was my intention with the mentor texts for this semester’s project, but I don’t feel like I made the idea and purpose of mentor texts clear to them.

I immediately took to Kittle’s piece because I learned so much about mentor texts from his sister’s Write Beside Them. One anecdote from  her book that has stuck with me is when she spoke of how she had asked a former student how well she was doing in college, and the student replied that she was doing well because she knew “what good writing is”. This is how I would like to teach my students to think about writing. I overheard a conversation between my students today about how they never really paid attention to the writing if the story was good, but immediately noticed when the writing is bad. I should teach them how to look at what makes good writing good, and then ask them to try it out more.

Take Three Steps Toward Giving Up Control

Pink, Daniel H. (2009) Take Three Steps Toward Giving Up Control. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. (pp165-166). New York, NY: Penguin Group.

Annotation by Melissa Han

Summary/Analysis

Pink lists three practical ways that a “boss” of a company or group can relinquish control. One way is to involve people in goal-setting. When people are involved in the process of creating goals then there is more buy-in and often strive for higher goals than the “boss” imagined. The second is to use noncontrolling language like “must” or “should”. He suggests using words like “think about” and “consider”. This shift in language can encourage engagement instead of compliance or defiance. The subtlety of this second strategy was eye opening for me because I realized how seemingly small acts can hugely hinder motivation in my students. The third final way to release control is to hold office hours. This strategy suggests freeing up a couple hours a week when people can come and talk to you about anything. Opportunities such as these allows for the “boss” to learn something from the interaction.

Pink’s suggested ways to relinquish control taps into fostering an environment where mutual trust is sought after but can only begin when the one in leadership begins to trust those that he/she leads. Although the word “relinquish” is defined as surrender, it seems to me that within the context of Pink’s article, empowerment to do great work happens to both for those who lead and for those who are led because everyone involved believes that they have a say in the process and outcome together. The quality of the work then goes through a transformation because of the changing relationships between those involved through the releasing of control.

It begs the question, why do we, educators, feel the need to control the environment in our classrooms when it actually doesn’t produce the desired outcome? Instead we are faced with only an illusion of control. Our students comply out of fear or defy out of protest. Letting go of the fears that corner us into control may actually free us up to experience a higher quality of learning and higher quality of relationships with our students.

Relevant Quotes/Concepts

~”Extending people the freedom they need to do great work is usually wise, but it’s not easy.” (165)

~”…begin letting go-for your own benefit and your team’s” (165)

Wait Time

Henkin, R. (1998). Who's invited to share?: using literacy to teach equity and social justice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

“A large body of research supports the idea that if teachers wait three to five seconds after asking a question or before calling on a student, higher-level learning will occur. Even more importantly, if teachers can wait three to five seconds when students have stopped talking, more complex ideas will develop. The minute we start talking, students’ thinking is interrupted and thoughts are lost. (60)

This quote gave me many ideas for my action research in my own classroom. When a child is sharing or presenting in front of the class and a child asks them a question, sometimes that few seconds can seems like an eternity. My mind begins thinking, should I step in? Should I say something? Is this taking too much time? What if he/she has nothing to say? I need to restrain myself and not talk. What will end up being said?

Another question this makes me wonder is if this wait time occurs in social situations? How often would I see it occur during 45 minutes of free choice? Would my findings reinforce the importance of offering this wait time in academic situations? Are students taught to talk fast and simply raise their hands quickly? Does this reflect the pace at which our society moves?

This chapter definitely made me realize the importance of teaching the importance of student wait time and to provide numerous opportunities for students to activate further reflection.