Know Your Why!

Learning To Be An Instructional Coach

The roles of EdTech Coaches have evolved. The early generations of EdTech Coaches primarily focused on finding and teaching the tools. This was a need since "educational technology" was not integrated into mainstream education. Our early goals and projects focused on finding a tool and showing teachers how to use it. Sometimes, we even took the easier path and did the work for the teachers instead of teaching them how to do it themselves. The questions we most often answered were “how” questions. “Why” questions were rarely part of our conversations.

In the past, effective pedagogy and best practices were almost always secondary to the shiny new web resources or devices. Many of us put the carriage before the horse and failed to bring real changes to how we teach and learn. A WebQuest, after all, is really little more than a digital worksheet. Using technology to provide students with worksheets on a computer screen is not listed as innovation in any book about educational innovation.

Times are changing. Technology has invaded the classrooms across the country. Even our job titles are changing. The word Technology is missing from these titles. We are becoming Innovation Coordinators and Instructional Coaches. Our jobs are about instruction, enhanced by technology. Technology is too integrated into many classrooms for our focus to just be on the tools. Today's instructional coach cannot just be an expert on how to use different tools. We must become experts on instructional practices supported by technology. We now focus on technology to enhance good teaching. Powerful pedagogy now comes first, and the technology tools are added to enhance the learning environment.

In my school, we've tried to model how technology enhances good teaching and learning practices. Pedagogy comes first. Our planning and support focus on these three principles:

First, we focus on the why before the tool. When a teacher is looking to get something done, we first ask about the essential student skills connected to the task. The 4Cs of education (collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity) take center stage in most of what we do.
Second, we look for tools that can be used for students across content areas. While there are many great subject specific resources, we prefer tools that support students throughout their day. Instead of focusing on tools that only support a specific subject, we instead look first for tools that can support different activities connected to essential skills across the curricula.
Finally, we try to always emphasize that technology alone does not have the power make a bad lesson great. Technology at its best only enhances what is already there. Strong teaching and learning practices must be established before the tools are added to the mix.

As instructional coaches, we also try to focus on these 5 pillars as we plan support our teachers and students:

If your staff is still looking for you to teach the tools, or even create something for them using the tools, it is time to flip the switch. Don’t just teach. Instead, learn from the great teachers around you. Maybe even start with a change in your title?

Here are a few resources we use to plan our professional development activities:

The ISTE Standards for Teachers
ISTE Standards for Coaches
Learning Form Coaching: How Do I Work With An Instructional Coach to Grow as a Teacher?
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers Who Use Technology
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills
Recharge Learning - Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, & Creativity
Connected Educator Networks to Support Personal Learning Networks
Embrace Mistakes and Grow as a Learner
If you are a GAFE district I would consider using the Google Training Courses as part of your professional development plan. These are well put together and focus on skills before the tools.

Want to learn more about what we do?

Google Maps Tools for Critical Thinking and Creativity

Google Maps is a useful tool for many of us in our day to day lives, but many classrooms don't take advantage of some of the incredible resources that are connected to Google Maps.

Google maps can provide classrooms with some incredible opportunities to create lessons based on creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration.

Here are a few resources connected to Google Maps that classroom teachers will find useful:

Geoguessr
Game using StreetView images that drops the player in a random location and challenges them to work out where they are.
Create Your Own Geoguessr with Geosettr
Smarty Pins
A fun and interactive game that tests players’ trivia and geography knowledge
My Maps
Create custom maps to share online with Google My Maps We recently used My Maps as part of our Biome Unit.
Google Cultural Institute World Wonders
The World Wonders Project is a valuable resource for students and scholars who can now virtually discover some of the most famous sites on earth.
Street View Treks
Trek the world with Google Maps. Travel with the team as they collect Street View imagery cultural, historical and geographical wonders.

Here is a bit more information on Google Maps in Education:

How could you incorporate these into your student's learning? What other Google Maps resources do you use?

Why be Curious?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost The Poetry Foundation

I have been very focused on incorporating the 4Cs in my classroom and to support our teacher professional development for the past several years. I was initially inspired by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Recently, I have begun to add the 5th C of curiosity into my teaching and learning. Robert Frost's the Road Not Taken is a great example of how curiosity can impact a student's future in profound ways.

If you've ever been in a car with a curious child you will recognize that a child's curiosity is endless. They will bombard you with question after question as they seek to understand the world around them. This is an incredible aspect of our human intellect that must be nurtured and encouraged through adulthood. We must encourage our students to never stop asking questions and pursuing the answers. This is how the world becomes a better place. We need more innovators.

I fully realize that curiosity is a difficult skill to understand and nurture in a world of standardized testing, but I don't think we can let that be an excuse to not try. I personally plan to to encourage more exploration in my classroom Not easy in an AP Curriculum, but I hope I can make it work.

We started 2nd Semester with and activity to inspire some curiosity:

Reboot the Noggin Acitivity

I've also started to put together some resources to support and encourage creativity in the classroom.

Recharge Learning Resources to Support Curiosity in the Classroom

What resources or ideas do you have to support curiosity in your classroom?

Why is Creativity So Important for Today's Learner?

In a previous post I discussed Collaboration as the first skill I dive into when I evaluate possible uses of an online tool or app. If I can't find a way to use a tool in a collaborative way, I may not invest much thought into using it.

Once I've established how collaborative a lesson can be with a specific tool, I dig deeper to evaluate the other skills it can help develop. I always want to know how it can support and build essentials skills before I think about content. Don't get me wrong, there are some incredible content resources available for today's learner, but if I don't design a lesson that uses content to develop student skills, too often that content becomes quickly forgotten with no real learning gains. A great resource combined with a great lesson helps develop all of the 4Cs.

We want our students to be creative, but sometimes the whole idea of being creative is left to a student's own devices. For many students being creative starts and ends with them creativity planning to meet the requirements with as little work as possible. If I leave the product of an assignment a bit more open-ended one of the most common questions from students is "Is this good enough?". I typically respond with, "It's good, but can you think of a way to be more creative? Either I get a no, or the real discussion begins.

Creativity - Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. Students will:

Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes.
Create original works as a means of personal or group expression.
Use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues.
Identify trends and forecast possibilities.

ISTE National Education Technology Standards

With the help of my incredible PLN, I've compiled a list of tools that can support creativity in classrooms and for professional development. Check out these resources in this collaborative Google Doc:

Creativity Tools to Support the 4Cs and Student Growth

Learn more about creativity:

How do you promote creativity in your classroom?

The 4Cs and Google Apps for Education

Over the year's I've always looked to improve the way I teach and my students learn. Google Apps for Education has changed how I teach and how my students learn more than any other resource or idea.

A few years ago I agreed to pilot Google Drive after spending years using Microsoft Office and Smart Technologies to support teaching and learning. Google was only a search tool that helped me find lessons and my students research ideas. My students collaborated on a variety of in-class activities, but we rarely collaborated using digital tools. My classroom was very teacher-centered. We focused on content first and foremost. The skills of collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity were an afterthought.

I won't tell you that I started using Google Drive and I immediately became a different teacher. I was probably a full year before I fully engaged in Google Drive.
The shift to Google Apps for Education also brought a change in my teaching. My classroom has become more student-centered. We focus on using the content to teach essential skills.

Today the activities in my classroom start with the 4 Cs (collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity). Google Apps for Education provides me with a great set of tools to support these skills in a learner-centered classroom.

Since I shifted my classroom to be more learner-centered, my own learning has shifted to a great reliance on my personal learning network. I've learned a great deal about Google Apps for Education and a student-centered classroom and I am always driven to learning more.

I learn the most by sharing, so here are a few resources that we've found or created to support learning in a student-centered classroom using Google Apps for Education:

Recharge Learning - GAFE Resources