Professional development with Dylan Wiliam!
Yesterday all the teachers at my school traveled to Örebro for a PD day with Dylan Wiliam – the guru of formative assessment.
It was a much welcomed trip. First, it was great to get out of the school for a day since I have practically been living there for the past two weeks. Most importantly, Dylan William’s message resonated with me in many ways.
He took about half of the morning session to carefully set up his premise — that the most effective way to invest in education is to make the existing teachers better than they are. Whether they have been teaching for one year or for twenty years, whether they are “experts” or not. Every teacher can and should strive to become better.
The arts
Of course, it felt very good to hear the arts get some attention. Here in Sweden, or at least at my school, the arts are valued. The home ec, sewing, woodshop, art and music classes only have 16 students.
It was still sweet to hear William say that the arts are not only a “fulfillment into adulthood” (I love that expression!), but also where the future of work might be. We shouldn’t deprive students of a successful future by focusing mainly on a handful of subjects (usually math, science, maybe language arts). We should empower them with resilience, independence, autonomy and the right tools to be life-long learners in all subjects.
Formative assessment
When it comes to formative assessment, I’m sure Wiliam was preaching to the choir. I’m sure we’re all on the same page as him. But formative assessment — the bridge between teaching and learning, as Wiliam calls it — is so hard to do right in the classroom. At IES it might be a little bit easier. There are no report cards, but students and parents can go online and view their progress throughout the term. So teachers are not pressured to give marks by a deadline. Assessment is always ongoing.
In the subjects that I’m teaching, it’s even easier to do so. For example, I spend two hours with the grade 9 students in the home ec room. The first part of the lesson, about 30–45 minutes, depending on what we’ll cook that day, is for theory. We talk about different methods of cooking, hygiene and so on. Then it’s time for them to demonstrate their learning in a very practical task. From my last lesson, I can see that I need to spend some time on cooking times for different ingredients and methods of cooking, so that my students will be able to improve the order in which they choose to cook their meals. It’s really a blessing that I get to see right away the things that they understood, and the things I explained poorly.
Improve until you retire or die
Out of all the great things Wiliam said yesterday, I think this one stuck with me the most. I think I wrote down word for word this part of his speech, because it was as if he were talking to me, and I wanted to be able to go back to these words. Everyone who knows me knows that I question myself a lot. And even more so when it comes to things that are important to me and that I’m passionate about and that I want to do right, like teaching.
I remember I once asked my last associate teacher “Do you think I’ll ever be a good teacher?” I think I was so nervous of her answer that I wasn’t even able to listen to what she said. The answer wasn’t negative, otherwise I’d remember it more vividly. I think she told me that some things will become second nature with more experience in the classroom.
Wiliam stressed that a teacher’s job is never perfect. Teachers never get to say “I did all I could for this student.” We fail every day. And we should continue improving our practice until we “retire or die.” “Don’t beat yourself up,” he said, “look for what else you can do tomorrow, otherwise it becomes a mental health issue.” It was exactly what I needed to hear. It’s what I need to remind myself every day, because I don’t want to whither under the pressure that I put on myself. I want it to become fuel for improvement.
And how will I do that? Dylan William asked each of our group members to comment on one technique that we discussed during the day and that we will incorporate into our practice in the upcoming week. I didn’t get to say mine because we were a bit pressed for time, but I’ll write it here so that I can make the public commitment. I’ll use the “no hands up” strategy. Instead of asking students to put up their hands when I ask a question, I will choose from a jar with popsicle sticks with each student’s name. This way, it’s won’t be the usual suspects (whom I already know after only one week of teaching) that will always put up their hands to answer, and “I don’t know” will never be the end of a conversation with a student.
I’ll leave you with some pictures of student murals at the school in Örebro, and with Dylan Wiliam’s closing quote yesterday, from Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
Originally published at http://teachingpilgrims.wordpress.com on August 29, 2015.