What is hanging on your band room wall?
Chances are your band room wall is adorned with plaques and trophies from various festivals and competitions. High quality ensemble performance is something to be celebrated.
How many individual accomplishments are celebrated on your walls?
PLC Question #1 asks us to develop a high quality curriculum with priority standards that are selected for their endurance, leverage, or power to prepare students for the next level. While large ensemble success empowers students with many wonderful skills, students don't get college scholarships because their high school band won the regional marching championship. At the audition, each student must stand alone and succeed on his or her own merit.
I judged solo and ensemble festivals for many years in Michigan. Students are required to perform scales for state proficiency exams. Year in and year out, I cringed when students failed to cash in on 25 free points on the exam. The scales are not a secret - they can be mastered months or years in advance of the exam. Perhaps they should have been part of the curriculum?
Students are also required to perform scales at most college auditions. When our students fail their auditions because they can't play scales, we have failed to adequately answer PLC question #1.
The ensemble problem is obvious in music, but can also be found to a lesser degree in theater. When the focus is on a large scale production, the development of individual knowledge, skills, and dispositions can get lost in the crowd.
There is another path. Consider Edna Karr High School in New Orleans. Their band was the subject of an NPR All Things Considered segment. Some instruments are held together with tape. The director has spent his own money keeping the instrumentation at a functional level. The audio clips from the story would not be considered first division performances in Michigan. So what's the big news?
Some of these students are prepared for college auditions, and some of the colleges give band scholarships. In a community that is characterized by crime and poverty, a college scholarship is a lifeline.
I'm proud of the first division ratings that my bands earned over the years, but I'd trade all of them to lift even one student out of the cycle of poverty.
Check out the story at http://www.npr.org/2014/05/15/312455384/at-a-new-orleans-high-school-marching-band-is-a-lifeline-for-kids?ft=1&f=1013
PS: The title of this post is an adaptation of a wonderful article on fine arts PLC collaboration:
Maher, J., Burroughs, C., Dietz, A., and Karnbach, A. (2010). From solo to ensemble: Fine arts teachers find a harmonious solution to their isolation. Journal of Staff Development, 31 (1), 24-29.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Monday, May 26, 2014
Collaboration 2.0 - I watched Sir Ken Robinson. Now what?
This is the second in a series on collaboration and Professional Learning Communities.
Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk on creativity is the most watched video on that website (http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity). With wisdom and wit, Robinson criticizes schools for over-emphasizing abstract reasoning and minimizing individual student strengths. It is all well and good to push against a culture of standardization and to reconnect with the diversity of human talent. Now what?
Robinson defines creativity as the generation of original ideas that have value. Value is defined by the domain in which the creative act occurs (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). There is necessary content knowledge that needs to be mastered and necessary skills that need to be developed. As arts educators, we must equip our students so that they have the requisite technique to create works of value.
What about the generation of original ideas? I believe we must balance technical training with creativity education. This is somewhat controversial, as there are researchers who do not believe something like general creativity exists. I subscribe to the idea that there are general skills that support creativity (Torrance, 1979), and that these skills can be improved through education:
Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk on creativity is the most watched video on that website (http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity). With wisdom and wit, Robinson criticizes schools for over-emphasizing abstract reasoning and minimizing individual student strengths. It is all well and good to push against a culture of standardization and to reconnect with the diversity of human talent. Now what?
Robinson defines creativity as the generation of original ideas that have value. Value is defined by the domain in which the creative act occurs (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). There is necessary content knowledge that needs to be mastered and necessary skills that need to be developed. As arts educators, we must equip our students so that they have the requisite technique to create works of value.
What about the generation of original ideas? I believe we must balance technical training with creativity education. This is somewhat controversial, as there are researchers who do not believe something like general creativity exists. I subscribe to the idea that there are general skills that support creativity (Torrance, 1979), and that these skills can be improved through education:
- Fluency - This is the generation of a large number of ideas. Fluency is the entire purpose of brainstorming.
- Originality - This is the infrequency of a solution to a problem. Obvious or common solutions are by definition unoriginal.
- Elaboration - This encompasses richness of detail. This sometimes works at cross-purposes with fluency if introduced too soon in the process.
- Resistance to premature closure - Openness to possibilities is an important trait of creative people. We can be taught to keep options open and reserve judgment.
The first question in the PLC process is "What knowledge, skills, and dispositions do we want our students to have?" If Robinson is correct, then we need both general creative skills and content-specific knowledge and abilities.
Establishing a guaranteed and viable curriculum that delivers these two broad strands of learning is the collaborative work.
Creativity education requires creative thinking. Building on Jason Fried's assertion that work doesn't happen at work (http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work), I recommend that teachers tackle PLC question #1 individually before coming together to hash out differences in vision. This is a departure from the process of many PLCs. However, we need our best thinking applied to this question, and we need to defend against groupthink.
Creativity is critically important in today's world. Let's strike while the iron is hot, put our creative thinking to good use, and do the work that will ensure that our students get the artistic education they deserve.
References:
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.
Torrance, E. (1979). The search for satori and creativity. Great Neck, NY: Creative Education Foundation.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Collaboration 2.0 - Work doesn't happen in meetings!
This is the first in a multi-post series on PLCs and collaboration.
When you really want to get some work done, where do you go? What do you do?
I wake up early, get focused with a full set of Tai Chi, make a coffee, and head for my computer.
I'll bet you aren't much different. You probably create a focus zone. You minimize distractions, which includes other people. You almost certainly don't go to the office. And there is virtually no chance you call a meeting to get your work done.
One of the big ideas of the Professional Learning Community process is the need for collaboration to raise learning for all students. This is one of the biggest hurdles in the PLC process. Teachers know what collaboration probably means - mandatory meetings, professional development days, and a paper trail to prove that people were in the same room at the same time.
Here's the problem - cutting edge business thinking is racing in the other direction.
In Learning by Doing, the authors make a good stride in the right direction by discussing the power of electronic teams to create face-to-face opportunities across distances (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, and Many, 2010, pp. 121-122). I'd say this is the tip of the iceberg.
Administrators need to break the old mold of negotiating strict meeting times with the union, examining agendas, and forcing people to meet who don't have shared responsibilities.
This is a critical issue for fine arts educators. We are often singleton teachers. We are often asked to meet with core teachers to create school improvement plans with non-artistic goals. We are not given the resources to collaborate with other content experts.
This has to change.
Using Twitter's hashtag system is a great place to start. Set up your account and enter some arts education terms in the search bar, such as #artsed, #artsblog, #edchat, or #atplc. You will find tweets that contain this tag, and you may find some interesting educators you'd like to follow. As you follow people (and people follow you), your network will expand rapidly, and Twitter will become a professional learning network. Don't forget to search for and follow educators you know and respect.
For more information on the lack of focused work at the office, view Jason Fried's great TED talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work#t-763916
When you really want to get some work done, where do you go? What do you do?
I wake up early, get focused with a full set of Tai Chi, make a coffee, and head for my computer.
I'll bet you aren't much different. You probably create a focus zone. You minimize distractions, which includes other people. You almost certainly don't go to the office. And there is virtually no chance you call a meeting to get your work done.
One of the big ideas of the Professional Learning Community process is the need for collaboration to raise learning for all students. This is one of the biggest hurdles in the PLC process. Teachers know what collaboration probably means - mandatory meetings, professional development days, and a paper trail to prove that people were in the same room at the same time.
Here's the problem - cutting edge business thinking is racing in the other direction.
In Learning by Doing, the authors make a good stride in the right direction by discussing the power of electronic teams to create face-to-face opportunities across distances (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, and Many, 2010, pp. 121-122). I'd say this is the tip of the iceberg.
Administrators need to break the old mold of negotiating strict meeting times with the union, examining agendas, and forcing people to meet who don't have shared responsibilities.
This is a critical issue for fine arts educators. We are often singleton teachers. We are often asked to meet with core teachers to create school improvement plans with non-artistic goals. We are not given the resources to collaborate with other content experts.
This has to change.
Using Twitter's hashtag system is a great place to start. Set up your account and enter some arts education terms in the search bar, such as #artsed, #artsblog, #edchat, or #atplc. You will find tweets that contain this tag, and you may find some interesting educators you'd like to follow. As you follow people (and people follow you), your network will expand rapidly, and Twitter will become a professional learning network. Don't forget to search for and follow educators you know and respect.
For more information on the lack of focused work at the office, view Jason Fried's great TED talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work#t-763916
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Safety First - The Core Requirement of a Quality PLC
Do you feel safe?
One of the big ideas of the Professional Learning Community process is that teachers must work collaboratively for all students to learn at high levels. Good collaboration means sharing best practices and eliminating poor practices. It eliminates the educational lottery by guaranteeing that students receive the same curriculum regardless of who is teaching. It promotes clarity and consistency of learning targets through collaborative grading. All of this requires that teachers put their data and practices on the table.
Are you safe to do this?
Educational leaders must create a culture where sharing is safe. Today's problem is that poor teacher evaluation systems can create a climate of competition rather than collaboration. Good leaders must fight against competition on two fronts. On the policy front, leaders must engage in the evaluation debate to steer policymakers towards a cooperative model. On the compliance front, leaders must do whatever they can to implement mandatory evaluation systems in a way that minimizes competition.
Simon Sinek might go so far as to say that the competitive model is, by definition, poor leadership. If you are a PLC advocate, you almost certainly agree. Share Sinek's video with everyone you can. The education of our youth is at stake.
http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_why_good_leaders_make_you_feel_safe
One of the big ideas of the Professional Learning Community process is that teachers must work collaboratively for all students to learn at high levels. Good collaboration means sharing best practices and eliminating poor practices. It eliminates the educational lottery by guaranteeing that students receive the same curriculum regardless of who is teaching. It promotes clarity and consistency of learning targets through collaborative grading. All of this requires that teachers put their data and practices on the table.
Are you safe to do this?
Educational leaders must create a culture where sharing is safe. Today's problem is that poor teacher evaluation systems can create a climate of competition rather than collaboration. Good leaders must fight against competition on two fronts. On the policy front, leaders must engage in the evaluation debate to steer policymakers towards a cooperative model. On the compliance front, leaders must do whatever they can to implement mandatory evaluation systems in a way that minimizes competition.
Simon Sinek might go so far as to say that the competitive model is, by definition, poor leadership. If you are a PLC advocate, you almost certainly agree. Share Sinek's video with everyone you can. The education of our youth is at stake.
http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_why_good_leaders_make_you_feel_safe
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Data and the Arts, part 2 - If I Had a TARDIS...
If I had a TARDIS, I'd go back in time to make better data decisions.
Before becoming a school administrator, I was a music educator for 18 years. I remember the exact moment I decided to stop asking students to play scales for grades. My students had to play 12 major scales from memory in under three minutes for their final exam. I happened to see a flute player's practice notes for the G-flat major scale:
...F-sharp, A-flat, B-flat, B, C-sharp, E-flat, F, F-sharp...
For readers who aren't familiar with major scales, these scales need to be spelled in alphabetical order, with no letters skipped or repeated. The series of notes above is the equivalent of a nonsense sentence.
I could be sure that this student had no understanding of what it meant to play in the key of G-flat major. She was just memorizing finger patterns, and she was using the most familiar spelling of the note to remind her which buttons to push down. I wondered if this was what everybody was doing.
So, I stopped giving scale tests.
Big mistake.
The PLC process has taught me the need for balanced assessments that provide evidence for knowledge, skills, and dispositions. This student lacked fundamental knowledge. I concluded that scale tests didn't teach this fundamental knowledge. Why didn't I just teach that knowledge better and use a different assessment to get my evidence?
If I had a TARDIS, I would teach students about whole steps and half steps. I would ask students to write scales as well as play them. I would ask them to write scales with and without key signatures. I would use well-designed multiple choice tests to assess knowledge efficiently and effectively. And yes, I would ask students to play the scales. I'd even do some ear-training to teach the aural component of major scales.
Do we have time to do this? Well, apparently we have time to tell the trombones 1,001 times to play A-flat in third position instead of second. Why not do this instead?
Data isn't the enemy. It is simply evidence about whether or not our students have learned what we taught. If this isn't what goes into the grade book, I don't know what does.
Before becoming a school administrator, I was a music educator for 18 years. I remember the exact moment I decided to stop asking students to play scales for grades. My students had to play 12 major scales from memory in under three minutes for their final exam. I happened to see a flute player's practice notes for the G-flat major scale:
...F-sharp, A-flat, B-flat, B, C-sharp, E-flat, F, F-sharp...
For readers who aren't familiar with major scales, these scales need to be spelled in alphabetical order, with no letters skipped or repeated. The series of notes above is the equivalent of a nonsense sentence.
I could be sure that this student had no understanding of what it meant to play in the key of G-flat major. She was just memorizing finger patterns, and she was using the most familiar spelling of the note to remind her which buttons to push down. I wondered if this was what everybody was doing.
So, I stopped giving scale tests.
Big mistake.
The PLC process has taught me the need for balanced assessments that provide evidence for knowledge, skills, and dispositions. This student lacked fundamental knowledge. I concluded that scale tests didn't teach this fundamental knowledge. Why didn't I just teach that knowledge better and use a different assessment to get my evidence?
If I had a TARDIS, I would teach students about whole steps and half steps. I would ask students to write scales as well as play them. I would ask them to write scales with and without key signatures. I would use well-designed multiple choice tests to assess knowledge efficiently and effectively. And yes, I would ask students to play the scales. I'd even do some ear-training to teach the aural component of major scales.
Do we have time to do this? Well, apparently we have time to tell the trombones 1,001 times to play A-flat in third position instead of second. Why not do this instead?
Data isn't the enemy. It is simply evidence about whether or not our students have learned what we taught. If this isn't what goes into the grade book, I don't know what does.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Yes, you do do data!
We teach fine arts. We don't do data.
I've heard that byline a number of times, often as a way to opt out of the PLC process. The three big ideas of a PLC are (1) to ensure that all students learn at high levels, (2) to work collaboratively to achieve that goal, and (3) to use evidence to assess our effectiveness in helping all students learn (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, and Many, 2010). The discussion about evidence morphs into data, data morph into measurements and numbers, and many art educators are resistant to the idea of measuring art.
Certainly, there are dangers in the use of measurement and evaluation in art education. There is ample research that shows that early judgment can block creativity. We also teach in a performance rich environment where there is more than one right answer.
Perhaps more influential is our love of the mystery of creativity. Elizabeth Gilbert's famous TED talk attributes creative power to the muses. We love the story about the genius who has mysterious powers that are unavailable to the average person. The problem with data is that the purpose of measurement is to make things less mysterious.
But art is about quality, and we make quality judgments all the time. Was the concert good? Who should get the part? Should these pieces be exhibited? Do we need to revise the choreography? Even a yes/no decision is a piece of data.
If we broaden our concept of measurement, data become less scary. Douglas Hubbard describes measurement as "a quantitatively expressed reduction of uncertainty based on one or more observations" (2010, p.23).
That's it.
With a well-crafted rubric, we can describe different levels of quality for our learning targets, and the rubric will give us a number. This process is only as good as the quality of the rubric and the reliability of the scorer, so high-quality work is needed in the design and implementation of the rubric.
And yes, even creativity can be measured. Many artists have described creativity as the production of original work that has value. We can reduce the uncertainty of whether or not something is original. As artists, we do it all the time. Torrance came up with a clever solution in his tests of creative thinking. Many tasks involve creating an original picture given lines, circles, or other abstract figures. Scorers are provided with a list of drawings that many people come up with - things which, by definition, are not original. These drawings do not merit originality points.
Art education cannot be effective if we cling to the story of the muses. As teachers, it is our responsibility to nurture and develop our students' artistic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. That must go beyond creating an environment where the muses drop in - it must include some specific teaching and learning. We know there are essential skills to master. We know there is essential content to learn. These things can be taught. Progress on these things can be evaluated. Evaluation is measurement's close relative. Once we've measured, we have something meaningful to put in the grade book.
Yes, we do do data!
References:
DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., and Many, T. (2010). Learning by doing: A handbook for professional learning communities at work. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Hubbard, D. (2010). How to measure anything: Finding the "intangibles" in business. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
I've heard that byline a number of times, often as a way to opt out of the PLC process. The three big ideas of a PLC are (1) to ensure that all students learn at high levels, (2) to work collaboratively to achieve that goal, and (3) to use evidence to assess our effectiveness in helping all students learn (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, and Many, 2010). The discussion about evidence morphs into data, data morph into measurements and numbers, and many art educators are resistant to the idea of measuring art.
Certainly, there are dangers in the use of measurement and evaluation in art education. There is ample research that shows that early judgment can block creativity. We also teach in a performance rich environment where there is more than one right answer.
Perhaps more influential is our love of the mystery of creativity. Elizabeth Gilbert's famous TED talk attributes creative power to the muses. We love the story about the genius who has mysterious powers that are unavailable to the average person. The problem with data is that the purpose of measurement is to make things less mysterious.
But art is about quality, and we make quality judgments all the time. Was the concert good? Who should get the part? Should these pieces be exhibited? Do we need to revise the choreography? Even a yes/no decision is a piece of data.
If we broaden our concept of measurement, data become less scary. Douglas Hubbard describes measurement as "a quantitatively expressed reduction of uncertainty based on one or more observations" (2010, p.23).
That's it.
With a well-crafted rubric, we can describe different levels of quality for our learning targets, and the rubric will give us a number. This process is only as good as the quality of the rubric and the reliability of the scorer, so high-quality work is needed in the design and implementation of the rubric.
And yes, even creativity can be measured. Many artists have described creativity as the production of original work that has value. We can reduce the uncertainty of whether or not something is original. As artists, we do it all the time. Torrance came up with a clever solution in his tests of creative thinking. Many tasks involve creating an original picture given lines, circles, or other abstract figures. Scorers are provided with a list of drawings that many people come up with - things which, by definition, are not original. These drawings do not merit originality points.
Art education cannot be effective if we cling to the story of the muses. As teachers, it is our responsibility to nurture and develop our students' artistic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. That must go beyond creating an environment where the muses drop in - it must include some specific teaching and learning. We know there are essential skills to master. We know there is essential content to learn. These things can be taught. Progress on these things can be evaluated. Evaluation is measurement's close relative. Once we've measured, we have something meaningful to put in the grade book.
Yes, we do do data!
References:
DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., and Many, T. (2010). Learning by doing: A handbook for professional learning communities at work. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Hubbard, D. (2010). How to measure anything: Finding the "intangibles" in business. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Is There a Creativity Crisis?
If you're like me, you're hooked on TED talks. The most popular TED talk is Ken Robinson's "How Schools Kill Creativity," at 26 million views.
While Ken Robinson is a fabulous speaker, it's the content that brings people to the site. The idea that schools kill creativity resonates with people.
"A Whole New Mind" is a New York Times bestseller. It is currently #24 on Amazon's bestseller list in cognitive psychology.
While Daniel Pink is a fabulous writer, it's the content that sells the book. The idea that creativity is the key to the kingdom resonates with people.
Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman published "The Creativity Crisis" in Newsweek in 2010. It was updated and re-released this year.
While Bronson and Merryman are fabulous writers, it's the enduring importance of this topic that led to a reprint. The idea that there is still a creativity crisis resonates with people.
The problem isn't that the message isn't getting out. The problem is that the message isn't getting to the people who matter - school administrators. I know this because I spend a lot of time with this crowd.
Design thinkers may hold the keys to the kingdom, but superintendents and principals hold the pursestrings. Arts education advocates must educate the decision makers in the school, and we must do it within the framework of current policy. We are unlikely to gain traction by rallying against testing in English and mathematics. Poor performance on these tests costs jobs.
So, let's be persistent and positive about arts education advocacy, and let's not hesitate to marshal all the benefits of arts education, including economic benefits.
Today's nugget, from Bronson and Merryman's article: "A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 'leadership competency' of the future."
While Ken Robinson is a fabulous speaker, it's the content that brings people to the site. The idea that schools kill creativity resonates with people.
"A Whole New Mind" is a New York Times bestseller. It is currently #24 on Amazon's bestseller list in cognitive psychology.
While Daniel Pink is a fabulous writer, it's the content that sells the book. The idea that creativity is the key to the kingdom resonates with people.
Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman published "The Creativity Crisis" in Newsweek in 2010. It was updated and re-released this year.
While Bronson and Merryman are fabulous writers, it's the enduring importance of this topic that led to a reprint. The idea that there is still a creativity crisis resonates with people.
The problem isn't that the message isn't getting out. The problem is that the message isn't getting to the people who matter - school administrators. I know this because I spend a lot of time with this crowd.
Design thinkers may hold the keys to the kingdom, but superintendents and principals hold the pursestrings. Arts education advocates must educate the decision makers in the school, and we must do it within the framework of current policy. We are unlikely to gain traction by rallying against testing in English and mathematics. Poor performance on these tests costs jobs.
So, let's be persistent and positive about arts education advocacy, and let's not hesitate to marshal all the benefits of arts education, including economic benefits.
Today's nugget, from Bronson and Merryman's article: "A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 'leadership competency' of the future."
Welcome to Round Pegs!
Welcome to Round Pegs!
My name is Darin Schmidt, and I am a music educator, school administrator, arts curriculum consultant, and Professional Learning Community advocate. As I work with arts educators around the country, I find that there is frequently a disconnect between teachers and administrators, particularly around the practice of PLCs. I have also found few resources that address the specific needs of arts educators. I am writing this blog to help bridge this gap.
I hope you find something useful here! Please steal and share with your arts education colleagues!
My name is Darin Schmidt, and I am a music educator, school administrator, arts curriculum consultant, and Professional Learning Community advocate. As I work with arts educators around the country, I find that there is frequently a disconnect between teachers and administrators, particularly around the practice of PLCs. I have also found few resources that address the specific needs of arts educators. I am writing this blog to help bridge this gap.
I hope you find something useful here! Please steal and share with your arts education colleagues!
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