Tag Archives: george couros

20 hour Project

There are some definite perks to having a husband like George Couros. He pushes my thinking, asks questions and has high expectations for my teaching and learning. I appreciate all of these qualities immensely and would not be the teacher I am today without his guidance and support. I was talking with him about how I enjoy the idea of Genius Hour and my students really enjoy working on projects like that, but I find that we end up making a bunch of things that eventually get taken home or go in the garbage. I know that the learning is more in the process than in the end product, but I was wanting to try something where the students acquire a skill that they could use for the rest of their life, something they could take with them. My husband, of course, had something for me to watch and told me that he thought I could definitely do this with my kids.

This video is about the 20 hour project. What Josh Kaufman explains is that we can learn a new skill in 20 hours. The way he proposes that we learn this skill is through a few simple steps.

  1. Deconstruct the Skill (Break the skill down into smaller and smaller pieces- practice the most important skills first).
  2. Learn Enough to Self-correct ( Get 3-5 resources about what you want to learn. Too many resources and you procrastinate, learn just enough so that you can start and self-correct as you go. Get better at noticing when you make a mistake, and then doing something a little different).
  3. Remove Practice Barriers (Don’t get caught up in the research phase. Remember that in the end, the point is to actually practice the skill, not just learn how to practice it.)
  4. Practice at Least 20 Hours

I love that this is a simple premise that can yield some pretty amazing results. There are so many skills that students could learn and so many ways to learn them. YouTube is an amazing resources and has hundreds of experts waiting to assist you. I wanted to try the 20 hour project myself before I got into it with the students so that I could show them my example.

My 20 Hour Project

In high school, I ran cross country and really enjoyed it. I didn’t keep up with it in university and when I started my first year of teaching, I tried to get back into it. The first time I ran, I was so itchy I was dragging myself across the concrete (a ridiculous image, I know). The next time I went running, I was luckily with a friend, the reaction was worse. He had to call an ambulance and take me to the hospital ( my blood pressure was dangerously low and I was passing out, and my whole body was covered in hives). Needless to say, after that I avoided running. Fast forward to almost 7 years later and I finally got my doctor to recommend me to see a specialist. What the specialist concluded was that I have something called “exercise induced anaphylaxis”  so basically, I am allergic to running (which no one believes me, so I also asked him for a doctors note). He told me that I would be able to run, if I ran on an empty stomach (hadn’t eaten for 4-5 hours) and took an antihistamine before I went. I was so elated that I could finally run, I rushed to the drugstore and bought some Aerius and started researching. I found 3 resources and an expert who has been running for a long time (my husband) and made a plan. Since I haven’t run in a long time, I started with really short runs and have started working my way up. The first week, I did short 1.5 km runs (because I wanted to stay close to home incase the medication didn’t work). Then, when I realized it was working I started interval training. The first 2 weeks I ran for 2 minutes and walked for 1. Then the third week I ran for 3 and walked for 1. I even started bringing my dogs on the run so that they would push me. The end goal is to be able to run a 10 km in an hour. I am currently only running 4km to get myself used to running and I will continue to increase the distance as I get more comfortable. I am currently running/walking 4km in about 21 minutes, but I know I will get slower as I increase the distance I am running. When I started, it was really tough and I NEEDED that walking time, but as I practice more and more, I feel like I need it less and less. I am really starting to love running. I have also been biking and doing runners yoga to stretch my muscles and help with my performance. So far I am about 5 hours into my project and really liking the idea and the end goal.

As I go through my journey, I have started planning how I can assist my students with their project. I found this resources that has some ideas as to which skills students might choose. Students are definitely not limited to this list, we will also brainstorm ideas and help each other refine our ideas.

One important aspect of this project will be that students do some research. Students will need a mentor to support their journey. They can tweet out asking for help or use YouTube to find an “expert” to support their learning. Students will find 3-5 resources and add them to their 20 hour project google doc. This will allow them to easily find their resources, as well as limit themselves so they don’t procrastinate.

Along with research, we will also need a way to display what we have learned and the process. This way, students can self correct and share with others their progress and ask for support. Students will blog or vlog their progress to illustrate their learning. They must blog each time they work on the project. That might be a few sentences about what they have done that day, their struggles, their success or a video showing progress.

Below is an example of a video of me vlogging my experience. I will continue to document my progress, and ask for support from others as to how to improve my time and how to train smarter. This vlog is only up to day 10, but I will try and update it as I continue to run more and talk about my progress.

 

 

Is it me…

This year has been a really busy school year (my excuse for not blogging since August). I got married (eeee!) moved cities, as well as started a new grade and division. Lots of change, lots of new, lots of exciting. I have a group of ladies I connect with on Twitter and we call ourself #plngelato (because we are teachers that support each other and we all love delicious gelato). We have a challenge to blog once a month (better late then never) and this is my December edition.

My husband is great for being honest and pushing me to be all that I can be. We were having a conversation the other day about how I am much more relaxed now  as opposed to at the start of the school year. He said to me, “You know it was more about you when you were stressed and tired then it was about the kids”. My first reaction was to berate him and tell him that he doesn’t know what it’s like and how difficult my class is… instead I took a deep breath and thought about his comment. Was it me? It was… I was trying to move mountains and push my students and myself beyond what we were capable of. I was expecting too much from myself and from my students which caused me to constantly be disappointed, frustrated and exhausted.

I am sure many other teachers out there would want to smack me if I say “it’s you, not your students” so I won’t :). I just want to share with you my experience.

The school I taught in for the past 3 years was a bit of an anomaly. All students who were in grade 4, were achieving at the grade 4 level or higher. This is not the norm in most schools, nor is it my experience this year. In September of this year (at my new school) I was teaching as if all students were at the same level, I was expecting all students to listen and work hard. I forgot that each student is an individual and I needed to treat them as such. I forgot that as teachers, we need to start where the students are and work from there. I wouldn’t walk into a grade 1 class and expect them all to understand calculus, that would be unrealistic, so why was I expecting grade 4 level work out of students who were struggling? It’s a much smaller extreme, but still a fault of the teacher. I was worried that it would reflect poorly on me if I wasn’t hitting all the curriculum outcomes, but as my teaching partner told me “You have to reach them where they are, not where they are supposed to be”.

After a month and a half of beating my head against a wall I started to change. Not necessarily intentionally, but I started to change the way that I was looking at student needs. I use a spelling program (that my amazing teaching partner Adrienne Zenko showed me) that differentiates learning for all students. Each student gets words at their own level (as determined by the program) and they sort the words into meaningful groups which allows them to learn word patterns. I noticed that students were engaged during the time when they were doing spelling practice. Students were actually focused and would ask to create new and inventive ways to practice their words. What was the difference between this and the other activities I was asking them to do? It was at their level. They were capable of working independently and were seeing success.

Another area that I saw success was in math. I use an amazing math program called JUMP math which goes through each concept in very small incremental steps, allowing students to fly through the parts that make sense to them or get extra support for the sections they are struggling with. There is also enrichment for students who are understanding that concept and would like to explore the topic in more depth and breadth. As with the spelling program, students were achieving at their own level, they were independent and were experiencing success.

As January fast approaches, I feel it is time to make a resolution. In 2015 I will treat each student as individuals and make sure that they can all experience success at their own level. I will not take where they are working now as a reflection on me as a teacher, instead I will measure their success through the progress they make this year.

What is your New Years Resolution for your teaching practice?

Collaboration

Every great teaching idea I ever had was inspired by, harvested from or straight up stolen from another educator. There… I said it. We hate to admit it, but we need each other to be successful. When asked a question, I often need a minute to create my own opinion, then I want to talk to others and get their opinions and ask questions. Bouncing ideas off others is how we achieve great ideas.

This year I have started using Twitter and have experienced the power of connecting and collaborating with others. Teachers who don’t have grade level partners are no longer isolated, they can turn to Twitter to allow them to connect and collaborate. In February, I went to Parkland School Division to learn how teachers in that division are using technology effectively in their classrooms. George Couros, Divison Principal of Innovative Teaching and Learning in PSD, set me up with several innovative teachers. Through this experience, I was lucky enough to meet Kelli Holden , an exemplary grade 4 teacher. She explained to me the power of Skype and how she utilizes it in her classroom. I was immediately inspired and asked if I could be involved in her next project. Kelli created an amazing project to help students learn about the Canadian troops leaving Afghanistan. The five classes involved in the project were able to learn more about the troops through a Skype sessions.  One of the teachers,  Catherine Dohn, spoke to all 5 classes about her husband, who is a Peace Keeper. She provided pictures, information and a first hand account of what Peace Keepers do. She was able to give my students an experience that I would never have been able to supply on my own. We also had students use a site called Chatzy, which allowed the students from all 5 classrooms to chat with each other about what they knew and what they had learned. They were able to learn from each other’s facts and questions. This was all made possible for my students because I connected with other teachers.

As an adult, I love collaborating with others and getting to hear their view points. I constantly collaborate with other teachers at my school and have begun to also reach out to teachers through twitter. If collaboration is so beneficial to adults, then why in the classroom do we often ask students to work independently? Some reasons I have heard from fellow educators are: “Students don’t know how to work collaboratively”; “they will just copy off each other”; and “they can’t work in groups without getting off task”.

Just like every other skill they acquire, students need support, practice and some instruction on how to be collaborative. In my class I use a program called Kagan to help my kids work collaboratively. The program provides a structure to allow students to work together and participate equally. As educators, I believe we have to let go of the notion that students are “stealing ideas” from each other. Collaborating is not copying, it is a way to learn from others and to increase your own knowledge of a subject area. We need to allow students to work with each other to create projects, have conversations and ask questions. The old adage, 2 heads are better than one, is truthful and something we should consider for our students.

Powerful Connections

This year is very special to me because I am teaching many of the same kids in grade 4 that I taught in grade 2. Not only have I seen them grow from readers to book enthusiasts (thanks Dawn Ackroyd, your book whispering in grade 3 is inspiring), but I have seen them develop a point of view and a sense of self. The most important thing in my classroom has always been the relationship I form between my students and I. Not only knowing their favorite colour and food, but helping them carve an identity in the classroom.

One of my students, struggled with creating friendships, so I found out about him and became his friend first. Once he and I were friends I would throw “that is so jimmy, he LOVES planes” into classroom conversations until other students picked up on his passion and started commenting on it themselves “Jimmy, the book I’m reading has a pilot in it… Come check it out”. Jimmy felt valued and other students helped him build friendships.

I tell many stories about my family in class… In fact even the parents of my students feel like they know my brothers :). Students will focus on a task for much longer then they normally would if I tell them they may get a “Miss B story” before the end of the day. In fact, we were reading a story in class about showing good character. I have an infamous childhood friend, who would always got me to do things I wasn’t supposed to. Mid story, a student raised her hand and said “I’m sorry to interrupt Miss B., but this story totally seems like something your friend Dodie would do”. Her saying that, not only meant she understood the story (linking her ideas to prior knowledge) but she wanted to share the link with me because she knew I would understand. The other day I was telling a story about my oldest brother and  another kid commented “that is classic Adam, Miss B.”. The point is, they know me… and it’s important for me to know them.

Creating relationships with students should be easy and organic for a teacher. If a student in my class is struggling, I feel it, if they experience success, I feel that too.

I am a human to my students, not just their teacher, which makes my experiences with the kids so much more authentic. They know I make mistakes and that they are welcome to do the same. They know I cry when happy things happen and they embrace it. Because I show my human side, they are more willing to show theirs.

Creating relationships with my students is so much more memorable and powerful than anything I we ever teach them.