The IEP (Individualized Eating Plan)

My dad likes to cook. He glances through recipe books from all sorts of cultures, ethnicities, and regions of the world. He is a dabbler, rarely following the recipe, but adding a little of this and a little of that. Each creation doesn't taste exactly like it did the last time around. He's a very good cook. He understands the chemistry and processes behind creating culinary dishes and wields this knowledge frequently in the kitchen.

The problem was he had three boys. The youngest, well to be honest, I am not sure what he ate. I think it was whatever we put in front of him, since he was 8 years younger, during the early years he probably had very little choice and when my brother and I left the house, he had nearly a decade of being the sole decision influencer. The middle child who was definitely his father's culinary son. He, anguished over the meal, and by 8 or 9, he was in charge of the major food prep in the house. He was an early developing gourmet cook long before culinary expertise was a value. He remains the "gifted and talented" chef. Finally, there was me. I was in charge of salad.

In our house, there really wasn't time to cook every night. With swim practices, religious school, Hebrew School, and other activities, someone was always coming and going. We would make a couple of stock meals for the week, a soup or a large thing of spaghetti sauce, that we would have two or three times in the week, and scatter in some other meals when we could make them. If you didn't like what was being cooked, you had a couple of choices hit the stock meal or scrounge the kitchen for another dinner.

A generation later, our house doesn't feel much different now. I am a little more experimental of a chef than 10 year-old me, my wife is an exquisite experimental baker. We have one child who is willing to try to eat most anything and one child who eats about 4 foods at any particular time of the year. We make certain staple foods, grilled items during the spring and summary with food prepped the night before. Chili during the Fall. Soups on and off during the winter. And some of us eat certain meals. Cameron's up for chili most any time, Logan has yet to ever try it. As such, each meal feels like and individualized eating plan. Who eats this, what's the alternative, can we give him a couple of yogurts and still call it dinner?

When preparing lessons for guided math or guided reading, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking I have 25 individualized learning plans, this will never work. However, just like cooking at our house, each plan is often a small variant from the staple dinner. Sometimes each group has different levels of problems, but the staple idea is linear expressions. Sometimes each group gets the same teacher-led session like adding negative numbers yet the supporting centers vary based on concepts they need to practice. The trick is to get certain learning experiences that our staples, the ones which we consistently build off of, and add the variety based on the needs of the group.

My bride is an amazing baker. Her "banana bread" is something that people will give up season tickets for. It's a creation of bananas, chocolate, toffee, and other sensations that excite a household. It comes from scratch and when it is created all of the house becomes a happier place. She doesn't cook it every time, but just enough that the world is a better place. She also has a book, semi-homemade baking. In this set of recipes, desserts are built of a cake-box base. She adds a little of this or a little of that to take a Betty Crocker dessert in a box and turn it into something special. At times she also gets the breakable cookie dough from the aisle in the store. Every once in a while when the kids have friends over she turns on the oven, throws them in, and ten minutes later fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. And, every once in a while the kids eat the cookie dough before its been cooked.

Planning for instruction is like cooking at our house or my wife's baking. Sometimes we have time to create the most magnificent dishes, often we build off of a base by adding a little of this or a little of that, and every once in a while we just take a serving of something straight from the store and say "here you go." It's the combination of each of these techniques that allows us to make an Individualized Education (Eating) Plan for all of our students (children).

Popcorn Shrimp

Teach Like Yoda

   It was July 21st, 1999. My wife and I stood in the Eastern Michigan University Bookstore. I was nervously wasting time waiting to defend my dissertation later that afternoon and I purchased a poster that still sits behind my desk. This poster has guided me as much or more as the work I did on the dissertation. It is a poster of the Wisdom of Yoda. Now, I enjoyed the original Star Wars trilogy as a kid. I truly have a hard time watching any of the prequels and for some odd reason I am excited about the new movie coming in December. In real life, however I am not a fanboy. I do watch it once a year or every other year with my boys, but I watch a lot of movies annually with my kids. Often it's better than what's out in the theater or on television. I can quote Star Wars, but I can also quote Star Trek IV, Forest Gump, Field of Dreams, Armageddon, and many other films I haven't seen in a decade. The Wisdom of Yoda has guided me far more than any class, any book, or any professor.
   In the original movies, Yoda rarely did anything. He was funny. He was odd. He gimped around slowly. He didn't actually do anything because he was a Muppet. Instead, he made Luke do almost everything. Yoda setup problems for Luke to solve. He was a companion, supporter, and cheerleader as Luke explored the Force. He reminds us that there are times we need to commit, to "do or do not, there is no try." He creates opportunities for Luke to learn and provides minimal guidance as he explores. When  Luke senses something in the cave, he asks Yoda what is in there and Yoda vaguely reveals "only what you bring with you." It is only when the student quits, that Yoda disappointedly demonstrates that the work is possible.
   Teaching like Yoda is about facilitating learning. So often in our world, teaching means "I do. We do. You do." We perseverate on modeling as opposed to discovery. This is great if we are teaching safety features on a device. It's far less effective for inspiring problem solving, new solutions, and innovative results. In the modeling based education world, we get reproducible results. In Yoda's innovative world we get new solutions because the learner must create them. If we want to teach like Yoda, we need to realize that we already graduated from school. We have already learned it. This is their time. We must pass the mantle of learning to the younger generation and let them figure out the problem.
   Last night, I sat at dinner next to a 13 year-old student. The child is bright, articulate, and a hard worker. The child hates math. For her math experience is often one of simply repeating problems that have been modeled on the board. She can follow the rules and do the algorithms, but math has no applicable meaning in her world. For eight years it has been drilled into her. Teachers have stood in front of her, "I do. We do. You do." She is simply at "who cares?" I wish for her to have a teacher like Jon Heldmann at Downers North or Paul Stevenson at Downers South. A teacher who will occasionally put a single problem up on the board for a day or two and ask the students to figure it out. A teacher that realizes it's not simply the number of problems that we can reproduce but how we approach a situation, use our resources, access our colleagues, discover new routes, and find the solutions. A teacher who answers our questions not with "the answer" but with guidance to find the answer ourselves. This is what it means to teach like Yoda. It is to facilitate practice and learning so that when the time comes, the student is able to take this mantle and run with it. That is the goal, for them to become Jedi, because we already have had our time.

Feel the Force

January, a Natural Opportunity for Renewal and Risks

Have you ever wondered, "I wish I had tried that"? This might have been interesting, but I wish I had been able to start it at the beginning of the year with that group of kids, they would have done really well with it. So often in education we are hesitant to try new things at the beginning of the school year because we are afraid that this cohort of students may not have the skills, capacities, or personalities of our previously successful groups. Moreover, we are hesitant to change things during the middle of the year because we are hesitant to disrupt the routine and flow of the class. As such, frequently we end up in a natural cycle of making minimal adjustments rather than leaps forward.

Interestingly enough, although we don't often recognize it, schools are blessed with two beginnings each year. In August, we come back to school, we begin the cycle with a new group of kids and do the dance of getting to know each other again. We learn, we grow, we make mistakes, we rub each other the wrong way at times, and we grow closer together. In January, we have a second beginning. The students return from a two-week break. The calendar year has changed and everyone is expecting some "New Year resolutions" to be changes in our practice. Unlike in September, during this second beginning, we know the children, their strengths, their needs, their personalities, and their quirks. We have had time to reflect on our gains. And now, we have the natural opportunity to take a risk and leap forward. All of the items that are barriers to risk in September are gone now in January.

Yes, change will cause ripples. There will be children confused as the routine and structure change slightly with these new risks. However, there is trust now between teacher and student. There is understanding of who we are and what we are trying to accomplish. And there is renewal, a natural time of year in which we all have reflected and work to make our next opportunities better. Take the risk, jump in, there truly is no better time than now.

Jeffster Movie Trailer

The Wand Chooses the Wizard

As parents of seven and eleven year old children, we are preparing for a great adventure. Soon we will be venturing to see the Harry Potter exhibits at Universal Studios. While Star Wars was the great adventure of my youth, Harry Potter is the quest of my children's. Preparations for this journey have included watching the movies as my youngest has not seen them all nor is ready to read the books. Whereas Star Wars provided great examples of constructivist learning, Harry Potter takes us straight to Hogwarts Academy where we discover the truest learning comes from doing.

Why do kids flock to Harry Potter, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Rings? Simple, the unlikely hero finds themselves in unexpected circumstances and learns to do things previously thought impossible. It is the hero who does the doing. Not the mentor, not the teacher, but rather the unlikely moisture farm boy from Tattooine destroying the Death Star. In school, we have traditionally sought opportunities for learning that prepared us by transferring content knowledge. In a world where knowledge was scarce, the skills for quickly remembering knowledge, transferring knowledge, and finding knowledge were paramount. What you knew could quite frankly save your live and those around you. If you were bitten by a brown recluse spider, recognizing that it was a spider bite and getting to the hospital as fast as possible made a difference. Now, we simply take a picture of the infected area, compare it to Web MD, and seek support necessary. In our prior experiences, much like the children of Harry Potter, learning could and needed to look like this:

Preparing for OWLS

However, we don't live in a knowledge economy any more. We live in an innovation and creation economy. The value is not in what we know but what we can do. This is a benefit to both us and the children. No longer do we need to be the guardian of the facts but rather the issuers of challenges. It is more effective for us to use the content as the springboard for the creative and collaborative things that the children can do. The experiences and explorations we create can be ones in which children are passionate. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the children learn a series of basic spells. These spells become the groundings in which they are able to collaboratively stop Lord Voldemort from returning. Their learnings and background knowledge, such as Ron's understanding of chess, become effective tools in solving the film's challenge.

In film, much as life, heroes don't save the day as solo acts, but rather collaborative entities. Where would Luke Skywalker be without Han, Leia, Chewie, Lando, C3PO, and R2D2? Frodo Baggins would have never fulfilled the quest without Sam Gamgee next to him. In Harry Potter, like Ender's Game, the true solutions only come from information and skills the children can develop themselves:

Children Organizing Themselves

Student Led Learning

Our children crave the opportunities to lead in their learning. Content is important, but what one does with it is more important. Children being given problems, resources, and the challenge to create great things is more powerful than any grounding in rigorous knowledge of our current time.

My youngest has been running around for two weeks with a stuffed owl in one hand shouting, the wand chooses the wizard. For him, the wand is the tool that would allow him to do great things. For our kids, whether it be a tablet or a netbook, the digital tools open the world for them to learn about great wonder and create the unimaginable. I wonder how Harry, Ron, and Hermione might feel if Google and Wolfram Alpha were available in the wizarding world.

School Books

Looking in the Mirror - Actualizing the Growth Mindset

Growing up, the mirror was something I never bothered to spend much time with. Sure it was in front of me when I brushed my teeth or washed my hands. Occasionally, at special times I did my hair, but lets face it that was pretty rarely. As I grew older, the mirror was this foggy object I stared at simply to make sure I didn't slice my face up as I tried to shave the six hairs on my face. As a kid, mirrors were that thing other people needed. I don't think I understood the power of a mirror until I was engaged or married. See in the mirror, my wonderful bride would find things I could never see. She could find the tiniest start of a possible scar that I, who had spent hundreds of hours staring into her gorgeous face, had never seen. She could see any little bump in her hair. She could notice any fluctuation in her weight. And she could make judgements on each of these. Like all of us, infatuated with the one we love, while I see amazing beauty, she can provide a deposition of things out of kilter after standing before the mirror.

In the book, Good to Great, Jim Collins identifies that one of the essential components of moving towards greatness is the Stockdale Paradox. This is based on the life and philosophy of Admiral Jim Stockdale, a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” - Admiral Jim Stockdale

Collins' interpretation of the Stockdale Paradox for individuals and organizations is that we must "confront the brutal truth of the situation, yet at the same time, never give up hope." We need to look into the mirror, and truly see who we are and where we are now so that we can identify not only where we want to go but the next step in the journey.

Good to great is based on a growth mindset. It looks at not how one currently ranks, but what potential we have to become the best in the world and how do we move forward in the journey. So the question arises, when we look in the mirror, what do we see, and what do we expect to see. Do we expect sunshine and rainbows or do we see the flaws, the chinks in the armor, the opportunities to make it better.

On the wall of the chapel at my temple, the words "Know Before Whom You Stand" is written. While the implication is that we stand before god, more readily we stand before ourselves gazing back deciding who we are and who we will become. We make choices and we make strides. We take actions and we act in faith that we will move forward. The mirror is a look into ourselves and into our souls. In the beginning we may believe we are judged by an employer, ranked by others, but the reality is that we are the ones who make judgement, we are the ones who decide who we are and what we can become, we are the ones who look at the standard and decide can we move closer to greatness today.

In my favorite book, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, the story ends with the tale of Ender's new journey as a traveler who goes and tells the stories of others after they have passed. Card describes the role as such, "a believer would arise beside the grave to be the Speaker for the Dead, and say what the dead would have said, but with full candor, hiding no faults and pretending no virtues... their life was worthwhile enough, despite their errors, that when they died a Speaker should tell the truth for them." And that's the thing. None of us are perfect. None of us are always gold stars. None of us should hold ourselves to such a standard. We need to leave the fixed-mindset world and enter the world of growth. Confront the brutal facts as we look in the mirror and recognize the next step forward in our journey closer to greatness. As Mahatma Ghandi said, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." We need to be honest in who we are and recognize that there are steps that we can take to become even greater.

I know that I have made mistakes in my journey. I recognize the multiplicity of missteps that have happened. Friends I have wronged, things I have impulsively said or done, feelings I haven't considered. There are moments in this life, I wish I had back. Times at which I could have a do over. I also recognize the opportunities I have created for others, the steps and supports that in my words or deeds have helped them move forward toward greater things. My story is not unique but rather the story of all of us. We each need to look in the mirror and not be the deluded queen asking who is the fairest but see who we are and what we can become.

The amazing thing about my bride is that while she can be hypercritical of herself, her hair, and her outfit, after she gazes into the mirror, she makes a myriad of adjustments and comes out even more beautiful than I could ever imagine. I am not sure she sees all the beauty because she sees what she can do next. Very simply each day whether in front of mirror, raising our family, or working with others she is constantly on the journey good to great.

The Fairest of them All

What Happens When We Discover We Upgraded Our Technology for All the Wrong Reasons

Growing up I dreamed. We all dreamed. We all knew the phrases. "Bases loaded, two outs, bottom of the ninth, down by three, look who's coming to bat." We could smell the air, feel the tension, hear the sounds of the game. It was a game of individuals. In that moment we would see ourselves: the pitcher, the catcher, the bat, and the ball. The rest faded to black for we dreamed an individual's dream. It was our dream and it probably ends with us. My sons, like many other children, don't dream this dream. They don't watch baseball. They enjoy going to a game in the same way I enjoy going to the theater. Every once in a while it's a fun experience. It was my grandfather's game, my father's game, and my game. But it's not their game and not their friends game either. 

As I watch movies, shows, and games on the television, in the background plays Stampylonghead. The sounds of video game walkthroughs play as I watch the heroes of my generation dance in front of me. The clash of time occurs and in the end the art of my generation will be replaced by the art of theirs. Who knew that the Fred Savage masterpiece, The Wizard, would foretell of the direction entertainment would go. However, as the Amazon purchase of the Twitch Gaming Network for one billion dollars demonstrates, perhaps the future in sports entertainment is not on ESPN but rather youth watching youth play video games. 

In the past three years education has had two forces driving the need to upgrade our digital devices. The primary urgency has been the Common Core State Standards assessments including PARCC and SMARTERbalanced. The second force has been SAMR. SAMR, a methodology by Dr. Rueben Puentadura that analyzes the role of technology in learning. SAMR looks at the learning experience and identifies how the experience is a substitution, augmentation, modification, or redefinition of the prior learning experience. The interesting thing is that these two forces are at odds. The standards and assessment group drives us towards skills of the knowledge economy. How much information can you know? How can we trick you with confusing language on the test? How can we get you to write so that our robograders can read it and assess it accurately? The funny thing is, when was the last time any of us in the work world wrote the five paragraph essay? When was the last time any of us in the work world did the research paper with note cards and highlighters to write the five page paper. However, the PARCC and SMARTERbalanced assessments are driving educational purchasing decisions. 

As I start this next dialogue, let me put my biases on the table. In our district we are both an Apple and Google shop. We actively use and promote Google Apps for Education and use Apple products to access them. As a district, we have earned recognitions from Apple and our leaders, myself and our Director of Innovative Technology and Learning, are both Google Certified Teachers. Simply put, we are not currently a Microsoft shop. That being said, if the Common Core State Standards assessments were driving my purchasing decisions, I would have no choice but to purchase Chromebooks. Simply put, PARCC doesn't currently allow us to use the iPad Mini or the Nexus 7 to participate in the assessment. Furthermore it doesn't allow us to use a tablet at all without the keyboard. This is really interesting as most often (as Stevenson and New Trier are finding out) students prefer the tablets but also choose not to use the keyboards. Their work world is not ours. In a world in which cost is the driver, schools have no choice but to choose the Chromebook. 

The trick is that my children's world is not my world. They live in a world in which the Washington Post was saved by Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and the New York Times is up for sale. They are going into the world in which Youtube, Khan Academy, and Lynda.com share how to videos on how to do everything. Their writing is not 2,000 word essays but expository scripts that balance humor, visuals and media. They need the world of SAMR, one in which their products are redefined for another generation. Just this week, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning organized the Google Apps in the SAMR Framework. The interesting thing about this poster, is that in order to redefine the learning, the apps require us to work with others. The tools are often not best on the underpowered Chromebook but ask us to interact with a world through visuals. Mobile cameras like those found on the tablet. Video creation, touch interaction, music making are all part of redefinition. Tasks very poorly done on a Chromebook.

I live and teach Sunday School in a Chromebook district. We share 125 students between five fifth grade classes and we invite the children to Bring their Own Devices to Sunday School. We have watched for 12 weeks now and only three times has a Chromebook come to Sunday School. All by the same child. Every other time, the children self-select either no device, a tablet (most often iOS but there have been a couple of Fires and Nooks), or a phone (mostly iOS but some Android). They prefer, when given the choice to research, read, write, and create on mobile platforms. They send in writings via email and google docs. They make songs and videos. They create and redefine the learning each week. A majority are required to bring Chromebooks to school on a daily basis, yet when it is their own learning, their own choice, their opportunity to select, they choose mobile over portable for their future.

Questions remain about the cost-benefit of digital learning. In the ways we currently measure learning, the balance sheet may not tip in the right direction. The question remains whether these tools truly measure the outputs we need to create within our learners. Does the product of a standardized test truly predict the value a student will bring to our society? There is no question that cost is always a consideration, yet cost is relative. In 1984, a 19 inch Television and a VCR cost $868, nearly $2000 in the current economy after being adjusted for inflation. Yet one of those ended up in almost every American household. When making our purchasing decisions, we need to think of not simply of the test but what we want for our children's learning and their future.

My sons spent yesterday creating levels in Geometry Dash. In a world in which they commonly argue, they spent nine hours refining levels, creating new ones, and receiving comments from other Geometry Dash players in the world. They were creative, collaborative, and found an authentic audience. The oldest one wants permission to create a youtube channel so he can share his let's play game walkthrough videos. He wants to make multi-media expository products. I'm not ready for that yet, but he is. While we plan for assessments of an era and economy past, at least they are preparing for their future.

The Wizard

Stories of Us

I realized this past week, that my sixth grader reads my blog. It shouldn't be a surprise considering that as an entering kindergartener he sat over my shoulder and that of my wife's and read our email. What surprised me was that he was actually interested in the contents and was making a point of actually reading it. So, Cameron, while these stories and conversations each week may not always make sense, please know that each dialogue is a brick in the palace that I hope to build for you, your friends, your children, and your children's friends.

My dad is one of the smartest people I know. I would say that he's the smartest, but between a family uncle who went to Harvard Law and some of the interesting, or at least odd, people he introduced me to from Argonne and the University of Chicago, I think it is safe to say at least he is among a group of very smart people I know. He doesn't often share stories from his childhood, as he never wanted us to compare our lives to his, but occasionally he drops a fun nugget for us to learn from or at least laugh with. One of his stories was of the economics class in undergraduate which he got something like 30% on the test. He explained that with the "curve" it was a "B." Moreover, students had gotten less than zero because they had missed the extra credit questions on the test and the professor subtracted points for the errors on that question also. He shared that he hadn't known the extra credit so he simply didn't bother to answer the question. I remember being stunned, this from the guy who missed one on the SAT didn't know the extra credit, 30% being a B. Sure, it was the 60's but there certainly were some interesting grading practices.

One of our coaches shared a story of her two children in high school taking the same class at the same time. They both were assigned the same project and being children of the same household took two completely different approaches. The youngest, a studious worker, began working that night. For a week she researched, wrote, and toiled. A week later she submitted the assignment and earned 100 points. The elder son waited to start the assignment until 9pm on Sunday night and whipped it out in an hour. He turned his product and earned a 95. At home that night at the dinner table he looked at his sister and his parents and simply asked, 5 points, was it worth it?

I was a 3.0 student in high school and college. Exactly 3.0. There was a reason for this. After floundering my first semester at Downers Grove South, my dad simply told me that if you want to drive, you need to earn the good student discount for car insurance and that requires a 3.0. Immediately that next semester I raised enough GPA points to bring my Freshman year average to 3.0 and maintained that average at exactly that point for the next 7 years. For every C there was an A. I calculated exactly what points I needed to have in order to maintain that average each semester. For car insurance, it was worth the 3.0. For everything else your work didn't matter. I learned a lot. I shared a lot. I simply created just enough product to insure I kept my car insurance.

That's the funny thing about grades. We want to see them as motivators, but they're not. They are just ways of ranking the output. They truly don't tell us how much someone is learning, but rather what hoops you are willing or unwilling to do. Pernille Ripp wrote an amazing article earlier this month in MindShift about how she has made the choice to become the change we need to occur. She looked deeply into her sole about her classroom practices and the learning environment and opportunities we need to create. The best part of the article was that it was shared with me by a coach and a 5th grade teacher that is working herself to become the change her students need her to be in order to promote their growth as learners, not 5th graders.

As I look at my work in my current district, I think of my legacy as a student that wandered its halls and what my legacy will be as a leader that went through its buildings. I reflect on the great heritage and our amazing work with assessment, 1:1 learning, our biliteracy program, and content area instruction. I look at the children of my friends growing up who sit within the rooms of our schools and I see the opportunities we are creating. I look at all of our activities working together, and wonder which thing will make the difference. I look into the big sea that is our district and wonder which stone thrown into the water will truly send the ripples through that cause the change that enhances their lives as learners. I am pretty sure that stone was thrown this week. In a district of 5000 students and 350 teachers, 100 children didn't receive a math grade. Three teachers made the choice to send home a progress report that simply had what the children had learned and what they needed to learn next. A simple binary list of you either have this or you need to continue to work on it. A two-page document whose story is not that of the grade or what was covered in this quarter but rather what we are working on, what you are done with, and what you need to work on that. Half of those students are 5th graders who through dialogues with their teachers didn't ask what would we do without grades but rather when will we have this for everything else. Half of those students are kindergartners who perhaps will never know what it is to fail math but rather be always pushing themselves to learn more math. The biggest question amongst the parents to the principal was what will the local video store do for the free movie that children earn with A's in the class. He replied to them, we'll figure it out.

I am so proud of this risk led by these teachers. I am so proud of world of learning and expectation they are creating for our students. And I hope, as Cameron reads this blog he will realize that his mom and I never care what the grade is but rather has he learned it. We are unwilling to bend about him not needing corrections because he got 5 points off nor are we willing to scream when he gets a C after studying for days. What we expect is for him to learn it, understand it, and be able to communicate it. For us, it is not about the rank but rather the learning. These are our bricks we add to your house. We hope it is a glorious palace you build.

Oral Exam