Findings
Phase 1-- Testing the Waters and Starting the Conversations
Staff retreat time and I was ready to go. I’d read about collaboration, thought about it, and was ready to get going. With one tweak. My original intention was to work with Otis, the music teacher, again and document our collaboration, but a few weeks ago, our director changed the schedule around so that Otis would be teaching juniors for only half of the semester and I would be teaching all 100 for the whole year. So I wouldn’t have a dedicated partner as I did last year. What was I going to do? I was feeling a little panicked, but then…aha…wait! This might just be a great opportunity to try many different kinds of collaboration and document those experiences! I could pair with people on my team that I’ve never partnered with before. This was going to be great!
But after our first meeting as a team, I felt frustrated. I had pitched the idea of working together on a big junior team project revolving around communication since the Pablo, biology teacher, was looking at the evolution of sound and pairing with Otis to recreate animal sounds in songs and I thought it might be cool to incorporate written communication in English class and maybe even history class. But there were no takers. I had to resist the urge to take this personally, but it wasn’t easy. I voiced my frustrations to Nadia, the 11th grade math teacher, that I was trying to collaborate with bio and music but they seemed resistant, that they had their own thing going and didn’t want an additional discipline in there. And then Nadia said…”Well, what about me?”
Well of course. I would love to collaborate with Nadia. It made so much sense! After all, we were the two teachers on our team who would teach all 100 students all year. It would be easy to schedule. And Nadia is one of those extremely thoughtful and generous teachers that everyone enjoys working with. But English and math? That didn’t make as much sense. They seem, well, opposite somehow. I found myself internally resisting this collaboration even though I loved working with Nadia. Why? What was I afraid of? That the project would feel forced? That the kids wouldn’t be into it? What kind of a project could we do together that would make sense? After talking about it further she reminded me of an idea for a project that she’d been wanting to do for a while – an encryption project. Ah yes, I remembered her mentioning that last year -- codes and code-breaking using math. But how would English fit in there? Well what if the kids created mystery stories like Encyclopedia Brown and included codes in the story as a clue? Like the Da Vinci Code! Yes! I walked away from our meeting excited at the possibilities…but within an hour, clouds of doubt moved in again.
The project sounded great, so why was I still hesitant? I guess it all boiled down to me having a hard time really buying in to this as a rigorous project. Mystery writing, creative writing, seemed too fluffy to me. I wanted to create a project that used the kids’ analytical and essay-writing skills. I feel very strongly about the skills I want to develop in my students in order to prepare them for the rigors of college. Past students have expressed to me how grateful they were for the essay writing and research instruction, so I was feeling the responsibility of teaching those skills.
I was feeling uncomfortable about it all and found myself wishing at that point that I had focused my research on writing in the classroom, my classroom, looking at student voice, and social justice as I had initially started out. Collaboration was too messy, too dependent on colleagues who might not want to collaborate. And with the colleague who did want to collaborate, I was worried that the project wouldn’t be rigorous and that I would have to let go of too much control of my curriculum.
Hold on. What was that I just said? After all of my reading about barriers to collaborating, did I really just say that I wished I could just stay in my classroom? Did I really just say that I was afraid of letting go of my curriculum? Did I smell hypocrisy here? It would seem so. Apparently, just because I was aware of the barriers to collaboration didn’t automatically mean I was immune to them. It would seem that even as I’d been complaining about some of my colleagues’ responses, I’d been putting up some barriers of my own. It was time to do a little reflecting.
And in my reflection, I was humbled. I realized that I had experienced and doled out some barriers to collaboration I’d read about. Hopefully I’d learned from this, and now it was time to press forward. I reminded myself of the value in collaboration, and I became re-inspired to experience as many collaborations as I could in order to capture and record what works. With renewed commitment, I decided I would try to do both – collaborate with math on our encryption project as an official integrated project and collaborate with the other disciplines in a more superficial way – “collaboration light,” if you will, by being a support/supplement to my colleagues’ classes. Maybe I could split my curriculum to more closely match the bio and history classes, since half of my students would take bio for two hours a day and half would take history for two hours per day. At the semester, they would switch. So what if I adjusted my curriculum to focus more on naturalist literature for the bio half and protest literature for the history half?
That would be a challenge for me, juggling different curriculum on top of effectively teaching and providing feedback for all 100. But it seemed to make sense. Students would hopefully see the connections between the disciplines and perhaps wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed. And then at the same time, Nadia and I could plan and implement our integrated encryption project. That would be a lot of collaborating that I as a teacher could experience and document!
And that would be a lot of collaborating that my students would experience and that I could document! I’d already seen from the literature and my own experiences the variety and different levels of collaboration and how they impact teachers, but what about students? I imagined that different kinds of collaborations affected students differently. But how? My guess was that some collaborations would create a kind of harmony within the class, create a kind of order, if the collaboration made sense. It would also seem that a forced collaboration would create disharmony and frustration. So if I were to work to support the other two classes, as well as work on a focused, structured integrated project for all 100 students, would this create more harmony or would it create confusion within the class? In what ways would students benefit and in what ways would they not? And I wondered if students would have a preference among the different collaborations after having experienced both kinds.
And what about academically? How would these collaborative projects foster student autonomy, critical thinking, and curiosity. How would these collaborative projects impact student learning? If one of my barriers to collaboration was the sense of responsibility I have in preparing them for college, would trying these collaborations help me answer these questions and ease some of my fears?
Listening to student perspectives
To start to answer some of these questions, I surveyed my afternoon class of 26 students to get a sense of what they thought about integrated projects and the collaborations that their teachers had done in the past. I wanted to see what their attitudes were now, what had worked in the past, and what hadn’t worked. This would also let me see how or if their opinions changed as we experienced these different collaborations together.
One of the first questions I asked them was this: “What are the benefits of projects that incorporate more than one subject? (circle all that apply)” I was struck, and quite impressed, that the largest number of responses, as can be seen in the table below, reflected those attributes of critical thinking that we all hope to develop in our students – broadening perspectives, making connections, deepening explorations, and increasing creativity. I could see through their responses that perhaps my concerns about content loss could be alleviated by the achievement of these important skills. If I could develop projects that fostered student autonomy, critical thinking, and curiosity, weren’t those the exact skills I hoped that my essay writing and research skills would develop? This gave me something to think about and to reach for in my project development. Another bit of information that struck me: it was clear even from just this one response that they saw the benefits of collaboration. This was great news since I wouldn’t encounter much negativity around projects once I launched them.
One of the next questions I asked them was this: “Which of the skills you’ve learned through interdisciplinary projects do you think will most benefit you in the workplace?” In looking at these responses I was struck by the skills that weren’t chosen. I found it especially surprising that no one chose leadership as a primary benefit of doing project work. I could see why no one would choose compromising since that could fall under the “working with others” category (since there is so much compromise involved there). But leadership skills? This presented some interesting possibilities. Should I be working harder to develop those leadership qualities that contribute to success in the workplace and in school? If so, how? And what about responsibility and time management? Shouldn’t the numbers be higher for these? How could I incorporate opportunities for growth in both of these areas? This would be something I could work on in developing my own projects.
The next question asked them to think about the challenges of integrated projects: “What are the challenges of projects that incorporate more than one subject? Circle all that apply.” This response I found interesting because of the multiple challenges students identified, as can be seen below. This also gave me pause. Here are some areas I should keep in mind as I developed my projects, thinking hard about how I was going to assess, and being fair and transparent about it, making sure the project made sense and didn’t feel forced, finding structures to help students with their time management, etc. This information was invaluable as it was helping me to become “deliberate student of my students” (McDonald, 2007, pg 4)
Phase 2 -- Jumping into the Collaboration Pool with Both Feet
To get the collaboration ball rolling, I decided to plan a couple of field trips, one where the history group would go to the downtown library to be exposed to research tools and primary sources, and the other where the biology group would go to Cabrillo and experience and then journal/describe their experiences as naturalist writers have done.
Cabrillo ended up being productive as far as understanding a little about where Pablo, the biology teacher, was coming from. We had an honest discussion about the value of integrated projects. He confessed that he had become more comfortable doing more projects within the classroom, as integration was sometimes difficult to achieve depending on the disciplines paired up. I told him I was of the opinion that integrated projects were good if they make sense and weren’t forced, and that there were levels of collaboration that could be beneficial. Even our field trip helped to give our students a sense of continuity between the two disciplines.
One thing that struck me about this conversation was it really highlighted the difference between collaboration and collegiality. Pablo is one of the most collegial teachers we have, always ready to help out in whatever way he can, and always ready with an encouraging word. Yet when it came to what was happening within the walls of his classroom, it was clear that he really valued autonomy and individual work. But was this such a bad thing? He’s a wonderful teacher. Shouldn’t he be allowed to teach in whatever way he sees is most beneficial to his students? Here was that balance between autonomy and collaboration that so much of the literature addressed. Perhaps the best thing I could do to further collaboration between us was to just back off and to be open to opportunities for integrations that supported these other two classes, rather than intruding upon their curriculum.
To that aim, the next week I decided to focus my students’ second essay on current events tied to either historical events or a controversial biological issue (depending on what class they were in). I thought that perhaps a logical, relevant project would emerge or at least, a feeling of continuity or connection for the students. The prompts for history were easy for me to generate since my students last year had done a similar essay, so I didn’t really need to get Lorelei’s feedback or help. I just told her about the essay and how I hoped it could connect to her class (which I realized later wasn’t very collaborative of me). The science topics on the other hand required a little help since I wasn’t really up on the latest science controversies. I sent the Pablo a list of possible topics that the students and I had generated to get his feedback. He was receptive and really helpful.
In the following weeks, the essay planning and research was moving right along and I was starting to think I might just be on to something good. I loved that the students’ essays were focused around a discipline that they were already studying. I started thinking about other ways to integrate the disciplines, so I talked to Lorelei about possibly requiring a paragraph of background information in the essay where students would offer historical precedents and explanations about their topic. Then I asked if she would be open to checking for their historical understanding and accuracy, and providing the kids some suggestions for revision or further research. She was very receptive and encouraging. When I approached Pablo about the same thing, however, I could see him resisting. I talked to him later about it and it turned out that he was resistant more to the way he would give feedback, not the actual giving of feedback. He was open to discussing the students’ findings with them, but didn’t want to read their background paragraphs or provide written feedback. I was glad that I had taken the time to follow up with him to better understand his perspective. This highlighted for me the importance of communication between partners as I might have misunderstood his hesitation otherwise. And I also wondered about the risks that teachers take when they are asked to collaborate outside of their comfort zone or their area of expertise. I know that I’ve certainly resisted when asked to teach something outside of my passion or interest. This would be a good thing to remember in future attempts at collaboration. In any event, I was glad that both teachers had agreed to help with this activity in whatever capacity they felt comfortable.
As students continued work on their essay, however,I was starting to feel a bit fragmented. I was finding that I had been devoting too much of my mental energy in trying to find connections between classes and wasn’t spending enough time making connections within my own class. There had been many days lately where I was feeling unprepared, with many mornings finding me hastily trying to gather my thoughts together before class or forgetting materials for a crucial part of the lesson. I didn’t feel like I had time to really think through my lessons. This wasn’t like me. And I was feeling anxious because I always felt behind or like I was forgetting something. Although students were making progress on their essay, I was also realizing that I was sometimes leaving out important points of instruction and having to backtrack in order to fill in the information needed. My curriculum didn’t feel coherent. My confidence in myself was shaken.I realized that I needed to change something. But what?
Distinguishing between Collaboration and Coordination
In thinking about it, I realized that in trying so hard to collaborate with everyone, I had undermined the planning and cohesion of my own class. I was trying to collaborate in too many ways and at times, I realized, I was the only one collaborating. I thought about the word itself: Co-labor-ation – co labor, an equal sharing of work. Collaborating only works when there are two or more parties involved. It can’t work with just me trying to complement another person’s class. That’s very one-sided and not very gratifying work. Collaboration only works if there is a shared workload. And I realized that just as collaboration and collegiality are different, so is collaboration different than coordination. Both are valuable in their own way, but the goals are different. Collaboration seems to be a more extended and integrated endeavor with a shared purpose and shared work, whereas coordination is more about individuals supporting each other so that the organization run smoothly -- but with each person still doing their own thing.
Another thing I realized as well was that if one of the barriers to collaboration is holding on too tight to one’s subject matter (which was a problem for me initially in the Encryption project), I also realized that the opposite was also true – I was letting go of my curriculum too much. I was trying so hard to collaborate with everyone else that I was losing sight of my own class and my own subject and my class was losing its coherence. This was that balance between collaboration and individuality that Fullen and Hargreaves had discussed. I imagined that if I continued in this way, the quality of my teaching would suffer and I would get completely burned out. With that in mind then, I decided to back off on the syllabus integration and focus more on what was best for my class – not discarding it altogether, but trying to make the coherence of my class my first priority. And then once Nadia and I started work on our encryption project, hopefully I would use the lessons learned here to make a project that was truly integrated – and perhaps more gratifying.
So if my question is “How do teachers experience collaboration?” I had just experienced some of the frustrations that I had read about. And I had learned a thing or two. I also recognized that perhaps I had come into this a bit naively, with a dash of arrogance. Here I was, ready to impart my newly found knowledge about collaboration on my team and they would cheer and embrace whatever project I bequeathed to them -- which wasn’t a very collaborative mindset to begin with. I came to realize that I can’t will my partners to collaborate or make them WANT to collaborate. All I can do is respect that they are dedicated professionals who are passionate about their subject and be supportive, offer opportunities, and collaborate with those who are open to it -- and then work hard to make those collaborations work. But not at the expense of my own classroom harmony and coherence. I came to see that although my hope had been that these collaborations would create coherence across the disciplines, and maybe they did to a degree, the full benefits of collaboration can only be realized when both people int he collaboration are equally invested.
Phase 3 -- Swan Dives and Belly Flops: Breakthroughs and ah-ha moments
On our next staff day, our task for the day was to “do the project first.” This is part of the project planning process where teachers actually do or make whatever it is they are asking their students to do. There are several benefits to this, the biggest being that teachers can see what the stumbling blocks are, and can better prepare the students or scaffold the project for a better outcome. Because Nadia and I were planning to launch our encryption project soon, we thought that we should work together to see what we could discover. This activity ended up being not only very helpful and informative in our project planning, but also a fun thing that Nadia and I got to do together.
Since part of our project would involve writing a short mystery story using codes to help solve the mystery, we worked together to write a story and then embedded codes in the story to help solve the mystery. From this activity, we were able to see that the work on the project didn’t have to be perfectly synced – the mystery writing could continue even if the codes hadn’t all been taught yet, since all we had to do was leave a space in the story where another clue would be revealed. I sat at the computer composing out loud as Nadia threw in plot twists and places where a clue could be included. This was a great example of a collaboration that was shared in work load, ideology, goals, personality, etc. And ultimately, this was a gratifying and informative activity – and a great way to start our project.
A great by-product emerged from this as well. We were asked to work in the same room as the rest of our team, and in the midst of that, Lorelei and I were able to talk about an upcoming assignment for her class. She was going to have her students write a research paper on a social injustice – which was very similar to the essay they were currently working on in my class – and what she had agreed to give them feedback on in the next week or so. So I suggested that they use the topic they were currently researching in my class and dig deeper in her class, making historical connections. It made sense (in my mind) to have students extend the research and writing that they were already doing instead of starting a new, but very similar kind of essay for another class. This kind of overlap was something I had run across when I was in England the previous year, where teachers were teaching similar concepts or content without realizing it – creating a repetitive experience for the students. Although she listened to my suggestions, this didn’t seem like something she wanted to collaborate on and I was reluctant to press further. I’d just have to wait and see.
Parallel Play
In thinking through this experience I was reminded of my children when they were younger and would engage in something called parallel play, first identified by Mildred Parten in 1932, where they weren’t really playing with the other children, but along-side them. Each child would occasionally look up to see what the other children were doing, while at the same time staying focused and engaged in their own pursuits. There seemed to be a similar dynamic going on at times on my team. I could see that most of our work as a team wasn’t collaboration as much as parallel work. Certainly there was benefit to this -- we could learn from watching each other -- but it seemed like our work could be so much richer if we worked together a little more. For instance, Lorelei and I seemed to each be doing our own thing, not really sharing what was going on in our classes, and as a result we were missing opportunities to work together on projects or even content that would allow us to go deeper and create a richer experience for our students. I decided that if I were going to have meaningful collaborations I needed to start communicating more -- and better.
I also realized that I was making some assumptions about my colleagues’ attitudes and eagerness to collaborate. I needed to talk with them to see if my thinking and assumptions were accurate, and to better understand their perspectives.
Building Collegiality: “Ole”
To start that ball rolling, I invited my team to lunch, my treat, so that we could talk about collaborating, projects, etc. Through this conversation, I hoped that I could better understand any barriers out there and possibly start to work through a few. In the midst of our lunch conversation it became clear that they all saw the benefits of collaboration on integrated projects, for both teachers and students. Otis observed that integrated projects were “more like 'real life'” in that often in the real world students would be asked not only to collaborate but to merge different disciplines; Pablo mentioned the depth that integrated projects offer -- that students could “see the issues or topics through very different lenses” Nadia mentioned student engagement since there would be “ more buy in if [students are] more interested in one subject.” As for the benefits to teachers they all mentioned the collegial support. I especially liked how Otis put it: “You're not completely on your own, which is nice.” Several also mentioned how nice it is to have another perspective and the fun that comes along with working on a project together.
At the same time however, they all recognized the challenges of collaborating for both students and teachers. For students it was mostly about maintaining interest over a long period of time and in multiple classes. If students are focusing on the same content for a long time, they all mentioned it could be difficult to maintain interest. Next was the question I was really after: What did they think were the challenges of integrated projects for teachers? The biggest difficulty mentioned was coordination and timing of content. Lorelei mentioned how difficult it is to do a long project around a content area that was only given a short amount of coverage time in her class and the fear that in focusing too much time on one specific content area, other content areas are lost. Pablo agreed and noted that it can be difficult where there are different “levels of sophistication and depth.” And they all mentioned the time involved in planning and how difficult it can be to carve out time to plan a project well – which they also quickly added was an area where administration could be a great support.
So I felt like I was starting to understand my colleagues perspectives a little better, but realized that much of what they had said, I had seen before in the literature (content loyalty, time)– so there were actually no big surprises in that regard. But there was something that emerged from this conversation that I hadn’t expected. The biggest insight to come out of that lunch wasn’t so much a deeper understanding of their attitudes around collaboration, but more a reminder of how much I genuinely liked the people I work with. As we sat around the table eating our lunch, we talked, laughed, joked, and ended up planning a possible team Halloween costume for the following week. And I realized just how important it is to have time to just have fun with the people you’re collaborating with – building bonds and connections that help carry you through the frustrating times. It had been a while since we’d done that and with all of the day-to-day activities and stress, our team had felt a little tense lately –but I could feel the tension melting away with each passing minute that we spent just enjoying each other’s company.
I remembered Fullen and Hargreaves discussing how even though collegiality and collaboration are different, collegiality is an important part of creating a collaborative culture. So to further build the collegiality that had re-emerged on our team, over the weekend I looked for mariachi band hats so that the team could all dress up for Halloween, as had been suggested during our lunch together. On Monday morning, Halloween, we all put on the red scarves and mariachi hats I’d found and then grabbed instruments from Otis’ room and positioned ourselves on the staircase to “serenade” the students as they entered the door. We liked it so much that we decided to do the same after lunch as the kids came back in. I felt like I was part of a team again, which in turn made me a much happier, more generous teacher. I felt supported, which I found really made a difference in how I approached our daily tasks. I also found that there was more willingness to collaborate after this as well. This reflected Jarzabkowski’s (1999) observation that through collegiality “teachers’ daily work is improved because teachers are better prepared to support one another” (Defining Collaboration and Collegiality section).
Collaboration attempt #1: “a worthwhile connection”
Students had just gotten to a place in the writing process where they would be getting feedback from both Pablo and Lorelei. To try to make the process as smooth as possible, I had created a sign-off sheet that Pablo and Lorelei could use for comments and suggestions. Because Pablo had been initially hesitant to participate in this activity, I rather timidly approached him about using one day of class-time to give his students feedback about their topics, and he was very open to it and appreciative of the sign-off sheet. Later I checked in with him after school and asked him about the process – how he had felt about it. I asked him if he thought it was a worthwhile activity – taking time from his class for him to ask kids about their research and evaluate their understanding of the science of it. I told him I wanted the kids to feel like they were accountable to someone besides me – someone with more expertise than me in order to up the stakes a little and so that they could see that connections between subjects. He said that checking in was fine, but that what he had really liked was the collaboration between him and me – that “having that connection between us as teachers was worthwhile and being able to support each others’ classes like that was worthwhile.” I found his comments really interesting. I hadn’t really considered the idea that the collaboration itself, interacting with another teacher, even if the product itself wasn’t great, was worth the effort. This seemed to speak to the desire for collegiality or cooperation rather than collaboration, Perhaps teachers like working with each other as long as that work doesn’t impact their curriculum too much. Seen in another way though, maybe these smaller collaborations -- “coordinations”-- were a stepping stone to deeper collaborations, that smaller collaborations build the trust and communication that are so important to a successful deeper collaboration.
I also checked in with Lorelei about how the process was going. She said that the process was fine, but that she was having to continue the conversations during lunch, her prep, and after school because she didn’t have enough time to devote to it in class. This was certainly not my intention and I felt bad for creating extra work for her. It again emphasized for me the importance of the shared purpose of collaboration because in this case the integration felt tacked on and not part of Lorelei’s curriculum and the goals she had for her class. In reflecting upon Pablo and Lorelei’s feedback on the process, I didn’t think I’d try this type of collaboration again as it didn’t seem to be beneficial to the teachers involved.
But what about the students? How had they experienced this collaboration?
Students’ experiences with collaboration: “Pablo knew more...”
I knew how I had experienced the recent collaborations between classes, but I was curious to know what my students had thought of the experience so I asked 91 of my 103 students the following question: “What did you think of the essay requirement to have either Pablo or Lorelei check your background information? Please explain thoroughly” I then categorized their responses in the following ways: Positive (words like help, good, great, enjoyed), Neutral (not sure, didn’t matter, pretty good), Mixed (chaotic but helpful), Negative (not helpful)
Interestingly, the responses were generally positive. I have to admit that I was surprised. My own experience in trying to make this collaboration work had been rather frustrating, so I guess I had assumed their experience would have been negative. I learned a couple of things from looking at their responses.
The first thing I noticed was that a couple of responses spoke of the chaotic nature or “tacked on” feel of the requirement. For example, one student said “[I]t was a creative idea but you should make sure they have time to do so,” and another wrote “It didn’t help me out because we didn’t have much time to talk.” This was indicative I think of the one-sided nature of the collaboration and some of the frustration I felt. If both teachers aren’t invested and contributing to the activity, then it could feel exactly as one student described it: “tedious” – for both teachers and students.
The second thing I learned was that even as uncoordinated and chaotic as it felt to them at times, most of them really valued and appreciated the connections between the classes. They liked getting another teacher’s expertise to help them “solidify our arguments,” and “check the validity of the information I had already gathered.” They also felt that the cross-discipline focus of the essay offered them “more things to expand on and also a different perspective on my issue,” and it pushed them “to be more well-read” on their topic.I particularly liked this comment: “I enjoyed that because Pablo, no offense, knew what I was talking about more than you did so he could offer more relevant feedback and other new ideas for my topic.” So maybe I should try this type of activity again, but just make sure I better communicate and coordinate with my partners. This was something I would have to work on. It would also appear from their feedback that most students benefit any time teachers work together, even if the teachers don’t benefit as much because they appreciate the expertise and perspective that each teacher brings.
Collaboration attempt #2: “A fun way to learn”
In the midst of our conversation about the essay collaboration, Lorelei and I re-visited an earlier idea we’d had around a 1920’s/Great Gatsby joint activity and we realized that the timing worked for us to be able to do this. So we began planning to have a Gatsby/1920’s party for the next week. Lorelei and I worked to create a whole day of activities – from Gatsby/1920’s charades, to acting out their scenes (and watching each other’s performances) to the Charleston with the 10th grade humanities teacher. Again, the fun and positive energy between Lorelei and me and among the students was palpable. The classes really loved watching the other classes skits and the different interpretations, there was a lot of hamming it up, and dancing at the end of the day and laughing at how bad we all were at the Charleston was the perfect way to end it.
This was an instance where it was clear that teacher interaction really affected students positively. But was it collaboration or just coordination? The activity was a one-day event that just happened to fit into both of our schedules, but wasn’t something we had worked on for any extended period of time on, and in fact, much of the planning was individually done. But at the same time, this activity had the shared goals that I’d noticed were missing from our previous attempt. And compared to some of the more critical feedback I received from students about the essay collaboration attempt, the feedback around the Gatsby Party was all positive. For example, this quote “The Gatsby Party was a very relate-able way to reference to those events, to make the students connect and infer” was a pretty typical response with many students noting that the activity was a “fun way to learn.” Lorelei echoed that sentiment, saying that the students’ “work became their play.” She noted that being able to watch each others’ skits seemed to build cohesion amongst the grade. She said that the activity had been a lot of fun and that she would enjoy working on this together again.
Some lessons learned: the power of collegiality, cooperation, and collaboration
What I’d learned or was reminded of from the events of the last week was that people like to feel appreciated, and that a few laughs with my coworkers could open the doors of cooperation and collaboration. From these experiences, I could see the real value of collegial relationships. Collegiality supported, encouraged, and energized the collaborations I was having. Collegiality was an essential component of successful collaboration. Collegiality without collaboration certainly wouldn’t produce rich, deep results, but neither would collaboration without collegiality. From what I’d experienced, they were both crucial to creating significant, meaningful experiences for both student and teacher. And from what I was seeing, there were some clear differences between collegiality, cooperation, and collaboration. All are beneficial to teachers and students, but they are different. Collegiality creates and supports the trust and the relationships necessary to collaborate and cooperate. Cooperation seems to be a first step toward collaboration because it involves teachers coordinating and supporting each other, though often in a more superficial or short-term effort. And collaboration is a more integrated, deeper kind of work that involves the negotiation, struggle, and adjustments that working toward a common goal sometimes requires.
The interaction between collegiality and collaboration was also the subject of some discussion in the book Imagine by Jonah Lehrer (2012). In this book, he examines several innovative and creative companies, mainly Pixar for this section, and looks at the structures implemented to nurture a culture of collaboration. Lehrer noticed that these companies really value each individual but saw the power of collaboration and went to great lengths (strategically placed bathrooms for one; multiple cafes and pubs on sight for another) to ensure that colleagues ran into each other often. Sometimes the conversations were more collegial (How’s the family?, etc) but sometimes they became spontaneous opportunities for sharing ideas or to get feedback. As Lehrer observes “The Latin crest of Pixar University says it all: Alinus Non Diutius, which means ‘alone no longer’” (151).
To summarize what I had learned through through my first attempts at collaborations, I came away with a clearer sense of what collaboration is and isn’t, and I learned the importance of communicating with my partners and with students. I felt ready to jump into planning with Nadia for our upcoming Encryption project.
Phase 4 – Finding a Stride; Perfecting the Stroke: The Encryption Project
Planning
Nadia and I had been planning our project off and on for the last few months, but we were able to carve out several good chunks of time to really dig into the planning and share everything we’d be thinking about over the last few months. Those focused hours of planning cleared away any nervousness I’d had about the project. The more we talked and planned, the more comfortable and excited I felt about the project. I felt my attitude shifting and learned something about myself in the process.
I realized I might be a little more of a control freak than I had thought, especially when it came to my classroom. I have high standards (as do most teachers) – but I was realizing that this might actually be content loyalty in disguise. I’d always had clear ideas about what my students need for college, and while this is important, I realized that I needed to be more open to creative approaches in achieving these goals. Because what were my goals really? I hoped that they would find their writing voice, that they would have a general knowledge of how a sentence is put together, that they would exercise their critical thinking skills. Couldn’t I achieve all of this through more creative means? If my goal was to get them to read more and to write more, certainly I could find creative ways to engage them in critical reading and writing. It didn’t need to look like it had always looked.
I also noticed a pattern in our planning that seemed to work well for Nadia and me. Nadia and I would meet and then separate to work individually and then meet and compare plans and ideas and then work again individually…each time building on each other’s discoveries and plans. We got into a pattern of talking for about 15 min and then very naturally retreating back into our own thoughts, individually searching online for things that would support what we’re doing or adding to the Google Doc we had created. And then after about 15 minutes we would naturally come back together to continue our discussion. During these discussions, we would constantly build upon each other’s ideas and make connections as we went, sometimes looping back around and throwing ideas out, playing with ideas to see what would work and what wouldn’t. This became a nice balance of collaboration and autonomy/individuality, giving us space to be creative in our own way within our classrooms, much as Hargreaves and Fullan (1999) mentioned about the need to balance autonomy and collaboration.
Planning successes and strategies
There were a couple of other tricks and tools we used in our planning as well:
Using Technology -- First of all, as I mentioned above, we worked together off of aGoogle Doc that we added to as we talked and that we also added to when we were planning individually. This allowed us to see what the other had added – which in a way was still planning collaboratively but at the same time, not really since we had the space and time to really think things through at our own pace.
Thinking about the exhibition -- We decided to start our planning with the exhibition and what we wanted for that – and as we talked this through our product changed. I went into our first big project planning meeting thinking I would have the kids collect their stories into a book, but by the time we were done we had decided to collect them digitally, use qr codes, have hyperlinks to math explanations – create a website with a list of student names so that people could click on stories and then read . And then, the icing on the cake -- in our research we had come across a website that had old time CBS radio mysteries so the final step would be for students to record their mystery in the old time radio fashion, complete with dramatic organ and sound effects. We were giddy with excitement by the end of the planning session.
Creating extended planning time -- Another important strategy, which Nadia and I both observed added to our productivity, was that we planned off campus at a local coffee shop, free from distractions, and were able to plan for two straight hours. This is not something that is easy for us to accomplish at school during the school day as there are just too many other things pulling at us. As if to illustrate this, our next planning session, which took place at school as Nadia was covering for another teacher, went nowhere because there were constant interruptions and we would lose track of what we had been talking about. As reluctant as I was to give up my time outside of school, it became apparent that having that uninterrupted time to plan was crucial – not for every planning session, but at least once or twice to have an extended and focused time to think about the project was important. And it was fun.
The launch -- During our planning sessions, Nadia and I agreed that we wanted to have a big launch for the project. We thought that a scavenger hunt at the park down the street using compasses, clues and QR codes (see below) would be just the kind of activity that would be involving, active, and interesting for them – as well as a sneaky way for them to get information about the project! It was a big activity to launch a big project and would have been overwhelming if it had been an individual endeavor, but between the two of us, it was more fun than work -- Nadia created a website, bought compasses, and tags while I worked on the scavenger hunt questions and found links for the answers that we could convert into QR codes. And then together over the weekend we put everything together and placed the codes throughout the park so that we were ready for Monday.
So-whats:
In thinking about the planning process, not only was I noticing that the project benefited from having two of us work on the activities, but I noticed that I was being much more creative, especially technologically, working with a partner. I was more inclined to push myself to try to incorporate new technologies because I knew that if I couldn’t figure it out, Nadia would help me or we’d figure it out together. I also noticed that the project was pushing me to go beyond what I’m comfortable with content-wise, exploring and making connections I hadn’t known existed but seemed obvious after they were made – detective fiction as a way to teach logic? Of course!! I was feeling energized and challenged and stimulated and excited!
The Project Launch
As I explained above, the launch of our project involved sending the students on a scavenger hunt. There were 10 stations and at each station 2 clues was presented: the first was to help them answer questions about our project and the second were coordinates and the number of paces to the next clue. Students were staggered so that they wouldn’t run into each other as they gathered clues. Students were randomly placed in groups of 10 with a paper bag that held a copy of the Da Vinci Code (needed to answer question #6 and the class reading for the project), a compass for using coordinates, a pencil, and the answer sheet for the questions. Our grade level partners were very supportive in giving us the afternoon for this project launch and in acting as support staff during the scavenger hunt, and even in helping students figure out some of the clues.
So after gathering all 100 juniors in the commons, explaining what we were about to do, identifying groups, passing out bags, and laying ground-rules, we were off to the park down the street. The clues were a mix of QR codes that took them to different websites with info about the project (movies, books we would use as well as a link to the newly created project website) and codes that they actually had to break. What struck me about this activity was how incredibly engaged most of the students were when it came to cracking the codes. They worked intently on the clues, helping and encouraging each other and showing a lot of persistence. It was interesting to see which students took the lead for some of the tasks. Of course there were the usual suspects in some cases, but there were a few not-so-usual suspects who really stepped up and got their team going.
Afterward, Nadia and I debriefed and we were both struck by the fun of the activity and that the majority of our students enjoyed the exercise. We loved the originality of it – we weren’t just standing up front going over a project sheet (though we did do that later). We also recognized that even with all of our checking and double checking there were a few errors in the scavenger hunt but were impressed with the students’ ability to figure it out in spite of the mistake – using reasoning and logic -- which is exactly the point of this project! With a successful launch under our belts, we were ready to get into the project work and lay some groundwork.
Over the next few days, Nadia and I both noticed that students are very engaged in the work we’re doing in the classroom. For my class, to provide a few models, we read detective stories, starting with Poe’s Murder at the Rue Morgue. As I read the story aloud to them you could have heard a pin drop as they listened – and they were quite irritated when at the end an orangutan is identified as the villain. We also read Sherlock Holmes and a little Dasheill Hammett. Toward the end of the week though, they were itching to start writing. It was great to see such enthusiasm. Nadia noticed this as well, saying that students had been reluctant to pack up and move on to the next class because they were so involved in trying to solve the codes and problems she’d been presenting to them. And she had noticed that some students who weren’t the typical strong math students were really into the work and really shining.
Teacher Collaboration and Differentiated Instruction
At the beginning of Week 2, Nadia and I worked on creating one calendar with all major due dates (see Appendix) so that kids would not be over or underwhelmed. We tried to space everything out evenly, trying to keep in mind deadlines and tests in other classes as well. We were pleasantly surprised at how everything we were doing in our respective classes seemed to complement each other. When I passed the calendar out, many students were surprised that we had included test dates for the history class as well. For my class I also created a handout that listed all of the steps to creating a detective story – but in recognizing that every writer approaches their writing in a different way, I decided against putting them in any hard and fast order, instead just leaving a line for check-off. The only thing I did require was that they create their main detective and a basic outline by the end of the week so that I could see the direction they were headed and give them some feedback.
I decided to use Google Docs to help support students in this process. Each student created a running Google Doc and shared it with me and a peer group of 4-5 students led by an honors student in order to facilitate feedback and workshops and to help me easily keep track of their progress. I loved the positive, happy energy in the classroom and the fun my students were having in creating their detective. At one point I had them introduce themselves and chat as their detective on Google Docs with the other students in their group (and I was able to join in on the conversation as well!) so that they could get a sense of what he/she would sound like. I enjoyed seeing the little quirks they were giving their detectives (one detective wears a monocle!) and the way they were talking about their detective as if he/she were a real person.
At the end of the week I solicited feedback through exit cards. A good number of students expressed a need for more guidance in the process and I wasn’t sure how to respond. A few days earlier in the midst of looking at models and going over some basics, I gave out an exit card asking the same questions – (What’s working? what could be improved? and questions?). Quite a few students responded that they just wanted to get on with it – that they wanted work time to start their story. But now that I had given them work time, other students were asking for more instruction or models. One of my hopes in using Google Docs was that perhaps in seeing each others’ stories and giving each other feedback, they would get some of the examples and models they were craving. I did get a lot of positive feedback about using Google Docs and several students had also appreciated the “Steps” handout I had given out to help them in the writing process, though I wondered if I should have included a model along with each of the steps. But I wondered, would that have limited the possibilities? How much is too much? Ultimately, my hope in this project was that they would become a little more independent, proactive, and build up some of the resilience that is so important to their future success. How could I support the autonomy and mastery that as Pink (2009) says are so vital to motivation? Where, I wondered, was the balance between supporting and enabling? I could see their point though -- a few more models would be helpful. I decided to spend some time focusing on our class reading, The DaVinci Code, to look at character development, code placement, and setting description.
I guess it all comes down to the fact that every student learns differently and that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. This was a good reminder that although I couldn’t please everyone, I could listen to their feedback, evaluate, and try to meet as many needs as possible. These exit cards were helping me to be a more responsive and reflective teacher. And the power of my and Nadia’s collaboration gave students more variety in how they would be supported.
I also loved that the exit cards were providing opportunities for some differentiation of instruction. When I saw a response where a student needed more guidance or had a suggestion, I could talk to that student individually. For example, I had one student write that he was stressed because he didn’t know how to end the story in a way that stayed true to the detective he had created, so I spent some time brainstorming ideas with him for a plausible ending. Another student wrote “you should have students watching more detective/crime movies and books before they begin the writing process” and I was able to have a conversation with her about the best use of our limited class time – that being able to have work-time and answer questions in class seemed like it would be more helpful, and that students could always watch movies at home.
Writing Our Stories and Supporting Individual Work
The tables are up against the walls to minimize distractions, jazz is playing and the lights are lowered -- and all I can hear is the clicking of the computer keys. Occasionally a couple of students stop to discuss their characters or plot. I keep thinking I need to DO something, but I resist the urge and just let them create, occasionally checking in on Google Docs to see what new twist they’ve included.
It had been a while since the class had been this engaged – which was wonderful. It also made me question what I was doing in class if this was unusual.
Midweek I put questions on the board at beginning of class to monitor experiences/attitudes
As can be seen above, one word that came up repeatedly was stressed. I conferenced with those who responded in this way and from them learned that most of the stress was being caused by the story deadline. I tried to alleviate their fears and stress by explaining that we would have two full weeks of revision to fine-tune, add, delete, etc – and that the draft due on Tuesday was just a starting point. Many of them were also concerned about the integration of codes into their stories – they were worried it would feel forced and were very protective of their plots and characters. So I tried to help them brainstorm some possible solutions that made sense and offer encouragement.
The other word that came up often was the word excited. Repeatedly I had heard them say that they really liked their story and were having fun writing. I thought those were two pretty good adjectives to have emerged. I was glad they were feeling stretched, and I was also glad that they were enjoying the work that they were doing. Interestingly, one student said she didn’t feel that they were learning anything, that they were just writing – so I explained to her that she was correct – they were just writing and that a lot of the learning would come through the revision process. But to myself I was thinking “just writing?” -- that’s great! I was struck, though, that I was getting complaints from both ends of the spectrum -- the struggling students saying it was too stressful and the high-level students wanting more of a challenge. But I loved that I had a partner who I could work with in supporting and challenging students where they were.
The Collaborative Power of Google Docs
One thing I implemented that was successful was using Google Docs and employing honors students as peer editors for a group of four or five of their classmates. For most of the cases this worked wonderfully well. In exit cards my hope that the Google Docs would be a way to provide models was realized, as I was getting comments like “the chance to look at your peers stories and them looking at yours...helps me see what I’m missing and get new ideas,” and “I find it helpful. It helps me come up with more of my story.” Student editors also gave feedback to each other during honors meetings so that they would feel supported as well. Because they had shared their stories as Google Docs, they were able to see the progress that their fellow students had made and offer encouragement and suggestions. Several students surprised me in how thoughtful and detailed they were in their comments– much more than I could have been in reading 100 drafts and providing feedback. It was also helpful that Nadia was also shared on the Google Docs and had been able to read through and comment on their stories, as well as well as find examples of students who had creatively incorporated their codes. As can be seen from her thoughtful email to me below, using Google Docs was helpful in supporting students, as well as providing leadership opportunities:
I've been reading stories on and off all afternoon while I grade their first planning sheet and just wanted to share a quick reflection. They had a deadline Friday to turn in the detailed planning sheet of their first encrypted message, which so far they've been doing really well on ;) I'm making a point to try to comment on each student's story to let them know I'm reading/watching the progress on those too. It's helpful for me to know a bit about each story too so I can help them brainstorm codes/numbers to use within their own context.
I was thinking about how cool it is that you have them commenting on each other's stories. I am having a hard time reading Doug’s and figuring out how to follow it and what to say...and then I read Jed's comments and I'm so appreciative of Jed! It let's me see our kids in another way...Jed is usually so quiet and it is so cool to "hear" his voice giving feedback to another student. It is also great that we can track their progress (when they last edited, etc). I think I can use this same format once the codes get in there better and once they start testing out links to the "how they solved it" sections, if those areGoogle Docs too (not sure yet how we're going to do the final piece).
Anyways... what I like is that I'm really enjoying going over these...it's not so bad! It's time consuming for sure (I've only gone through 10 so far) but to me that is a good sign that you and I are both still having fun with this. Also, I haven't checked, but I think nearly everyone who was at school on Friday made the deadline for me which is also a good sign.
I was realizing more and more just how important the use of Google Docs had been for our project and our collaborations. I come back again to that balance between autonomy and collaboration. Collaboration is great, but time for solitary work and reflection is just as important and should be encouraged and nurtured.
Becoming Comfortable with Student Discomfort
Early in Week 4 one of the strengths of teacher collaboration was made apparent.
During 5th period one day I was “ambushed” by a small group of students in the class who said they were speaking for the whole class-- they challenged the do-ability of the project, asking for a reduction in the number of codes, saying that it felt forced, inauthentic, etc – that the codes were “ruining” their stories. This was the second time they had presented their concerns, but this time they were much more assertive. I listened patiently, tried to acknowledge their concerns, told them I would talk with Nadia later and that we would think about creative ways to address the issue. We talked as a class for about ½ hour. On the one hand I really appreciated the fact that they felt part of the process and strongly enough to address this – but on the other hand I was frustrated by their more aggressive approach and the fact that after we talked, those students put very little effort into their project during class.
After school I met with Nadia who told me that the same group of students had also challenged her. After thinking about their concerns, balancing the need for student voice with the entitlement that sometimes results, thinking about the integrity of the project, and wanting to challenge them in new ways – we decided to hold our ground. Quite honestly I might have caved if I didn’t have a partner to talk this out with, since their concerns about the difficulty of the task were legitimate– and Nadia felt the same. But instead of reducing the requirements or extending deadlines, we decided to offer after school support and time in class for them to brainstorm about creative ways to integrate the codes into their stories. We felt that this let them know that their voices had been heard, but put more of the responsibility on them.
I think this also demonstrates the limitations of student feedback. Certainly, listening to student’s concerns and input is always important, but in the end we, as experienced educators, need to feel comfortable making unpopular decisions for the group if that decision will help them grow in knowledge, perseverance, or character. Our students were having to struggle a bit, and that was uncomfortable for them. Understandably (and as is human nature) they wanted to eliminate the discomfort they were feeling. But Nadia and I knew that the longterm benefits derived from working through a difficult problem were worth the temporary discomfort they were feeling.
That night, in order to alleviate student concerns about the math portion of the project and to let them know that their concerns had been heard, Nadia put together a FAQ handout and provided examples from student stories to show how to incorporate their codes. She asked if I could pass these out to my morning classes so that they didn’t have to wait until the afternoon to get this info when they had her class. In going over the handout, I could see the tension levels decrease and the lightbulbs coming on. A lot of soft “ooohhs” could be heard as I went over the handout and as I talked with students individually. I spent a lot of class checking in with those students who I knew were struggling and trying to brainstorm, give feedback, try to think of creative ways to incorporate their codes. One thing I loved seeing was that they felt so passionately about their characters – they really wanted this to be a good piece of writing and were unwilling to compromise – which meant they would have to work really hard and be really creative to get it where they wanted it. My job was to just keep giving feedback, encouragement, examples, etc.
Student collaboration: Using Protocols to Aid Critique
Based on feedback from our earlier essay and wanting to make peer critique more helpful for my students, I decided to implement the Spotlight Protocol I mentioned earlier as a support int he revision process. The Spotlight is a critique protocol where the work of one person in a group is the focus of critique and discussion, revolving around questions or dilemmas that the presenter poses. To start things off, I enlisted the help of my honors students as they would act as the facilitators for each group. We practiced the protocol during our honors meeting and then we worked together to modify it to better meet their needs and to work with the time constraints of class. They suggested combining a few sections and shortening a few others. I started with this revised protocol in period 1– explained it to them, had them do it, and then continued to ask for feedback about what worked well for them and what needed to be adjusted. After each class I tweaked it a little so that by the time I got to 5th period, I had made some good adjustments.
The next day we tried it again and I just watched how it went, noticing a few other modifications that we could make and asking for students’ ideas around some of these possible adjustments. By the time we had finished, we had come up with our own protocol -- the 5x5 protocol (5 for presenting and questions; 5 for discussion with the presenter; 5 for discussion without the presenter; 5 for debrief, 5 for reflection). Enlisting student feedback in this process was very helpful for me on several different levels -- their suggestions were very thoughtful and it felt like the respect level in the classroom increased. Students felt like their experiences and opinions mattered, and as a result were more engaged in the process. As a result I found them to be very focused and thoughtful in the feedback they gave their peers during the 5x5 spotlight protocol.
The Excitement Builds
In week 5 Nadia and I felt like we had turned a bit of a corner on this project. Students were finishing their stories and feeling good about it – and I think that inspired other students to press on. I also think the 5x5 spotlights helped. I kept waiting for them to start complaining about having to do another one but instead, each day that I asked groups to decide who the next day’s spotlight would be, there were ready volunteers, and when I checked in with students they said that the spotlights had been very helpful. At the end of every class we went around the room and I had the spotlight person share out what they had gotten from that day’s protocol – most of the time the help had been around how to incorporate the codes in a believable way, but they were also getting feedback on dialogue, organization, and most recently (and a good sign) how to end. Even though a full draft was due the previous week, I decided to cut them some slack as long as I could see progress. My pushes for them to get more of their story completed was framed around how helpful it would be for them to get some solid feedback on their story in a spotlight before the final draft was due the following week.
Midweek I gave out exit cards with the following questions: 1. Status of your story (complete, almost, revising, pages left to write); 2. words to describe how you’re feeling about the project; 3. support? Questions?
Three of the classes were great – they worked hard, were clearly on task, and their exit cards reflected that with most comments positive or a combination of positive and negative words like “stressed” or “scared” – which I think is great! It means they’re having fun and being pushed at the same time.
One class was another story however. Students were talking and I had to re-direct a few times – and their cards reflected that with many requests for more time and words like “frustrated” or “rushed” as their 2 words. I later reminded them that they didn’t have any other homework in math or English and that we were giving them time to work or get help in class – but that they were not taking advantage of the time or help given. I told them that Nadia and I had done our part to provide the time and that it was on them to take advantage of the time.
When I compiled the cards from all four classes, I saw the same words I had seen on previous exit cards like “excited” and “stressed.” However, a new word -- “confident” -- also emerged. I was so happy to see that the stressed responses had diminish a bit and had been replaced by confidence.
The Plot Thickens
At our next check-in, Nadia and I worked through how we would exhibit the stories and whether or not to push ahead on the audio recording. We’ve decided that given the time constraints, we would just have each group chose one story to record (more if they wanted to or had time). As we looked at our little example story hanging n the wall, we knew what we needed to do next to support our students. We needed to record our story and see what the challenges were, how long it took, how the program worked, etc. We got out a computer, fired up Audacity (the program we planned for them to use) and read through the story trying to change our voices as different characters were introduced. It was fun to do and the end result was OK, but then we realized that we needed to more closely emulate their experience. So we asked two of the teachers who had made appearances in our story, Pablo and Sandy, to come read with us. I was surprised at how willing they were to do so and how into the story they were, adding dramatic pauses and even physically acting out some of the scenes. The next day at our morning meeting Pablo made a point of appreciating the effort we were putting into our project and talked about how much fun it had been to participate. The students also enjoyed listening and gave them a preview of the fun that lay ahead.
The last two days of the week were spent checking Google Docs to see how kids were coming along and having individual conferences with them, especially those lagging. Their final draft was due in just a few days. I had to really lean on a couple of kids who had produced very little and I worked for a long time with one very vocally dissatisfied student to help her brainstorm her story. She asked for an extension on the deadline since she had just figured out her story and I had to say no and remind her that I had been available during school, after school, and during lunch – and that she had needed to take some initiative to work through roadblocks. She agreed. I had the same conversation a couple of times with other students, but overall, most were in the final phases of their story. I found that I had to cut them a little slack on what a “full draft” looked like. For many of them it wasn’t quite full as they were still working out code placement and some had needed to change their story a bit. What I was happy to hear from them was how much they care about the quality of the story. Some had even changed their story because they didn’t want the code placement to seem forced.
The Home Stretch
In Week 6, as students were getting close to the deadline, student workshops continued to work pretty well but I’d started to notice a drop off in enthusiasm for the 5x5 Spotlights since we’d been doing them for almost two weeks. Some groups said that they needed the work time more than feedback time and admitted that they were rushing through the protocol, sometimes skipping steps. I wondered if I needed to step in and insist that they follow the protocol. But I allowed it, acknowledging that perhaps we had overdone the spotlight and trusting that they would do what was most helpful to creating something they were proud of. Many of them seemed to be naturally checking in with a few chosen students. But I worried about the few who didn’t seem to be doing this. And I realized that this equity was the beauty of protocols -- they create a space and opportunity for every student to be heard and have their work looked at. To make sure this was still happening, I enlisted the help of the honors students (those who were done) and paired them up with a few of these quieter students to provide feedback.
To add some variety to the feedback they were receiving as they worked on their final edits and proofreading, I put my students in groups of 4, grouped by how complete their story was or their strengths as a writer and then gave them a clean copy of the rubric I would use in assessing their work. I wanted them to internalize the requirements by assessing each others’ work and think about their own work in the process. I also wanted fairly homogeneous groups so that stronger students with more complete stories were receiving helpful critical feedback that pushed them. That would then allow me to concentrate on those students who were still stuck, perhaps having some of the same struggles as their group members, and seeing what we could do collectively to come up with solutions. This achieved what I’d hoped, as we were able to work together to help several students work through roadblocks, and one of my stronger writers made a point of telling me that this had been the most helpful feedback she’d received. At the end of the day I felt confident that every student would be able to turn in a story they were proud of.
In reflecting on this particular workshop, I was reminded of the shared workload requirement of successful teacher collaborations. For just as teachers enjoy the benefits and energizing effects of a shared workload and can get burned out when the work is unevenly distributed, students also enjoy a more even workload. The stronger students don’t want to always feel that they are having to support other students -- they need support and feedback as well so that they too can grow. And at the other end of the spectrum, it’s also important for weaker students to be trusted with leadership opportunities. I loved that by integrating two different disciplines, more of those leadership opportunities became available since some of my weaker writers were also some of Nadia’s strongest math students and had been able to support their fellow students in the math part of the story-writing process.
Reflections and Feedback
The stories were due on Wednesday, and along with a self-assessment and reflection I had students include two words to describe how they were feeling about the project. A couple of words I saw repeatedly were relieved, happy, and proud.
As you might imagine, in looking through their comments, I felt really good about the project. They felt a sense of accomplishment and pride in their work and there is nothing a teacher likes to hear more than this.
Teacher collaborations: supporting innovation and perseverance
Now came the fun part! For the next few days, students would work together to record their stories. The days were very productive and it was wonderful to see the student’s creativity and innovation come out -- for example, Tommy was missing a group member today, so he and Walter came up with the idea of using a computer generated voice with a British accent to fill the roll. Jai found some honky tonk, saloon music to go along with his wester themed detective story, Chris had already found a website with sound effects, and everywhere I checked, students were having fun with their stories. During third period, I overheard one girl say to her group “Now I understand why they wanted us to do this -- it’s fun!” That was really nice to hear, given the earlier stress and frustration they’d felt in creating their story.
This week was also time for our Student-Led Conferences (SLCs) where students reflect on the progress and work they are doing in all of their classes. During SLCs I had students share the writing process and their stories with their parents and how they were feeling about their story. Two conversations during our conferences really stayed with me. One was with a student, Lewis, who has struggled in the past with writing and getting his assignments in on time and complete. His mom was excited about how he had worked so diligently on his story every night, and had ended up writing a 14 page story when the requirement was 6. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the way Lewis looked at me, the light in his eyes, when I asked him if he felt good about his story, and how he had so quickly and confidently replied “yes.”
The other conversation was the other end of the spectrum -- with a student, Serena, who normally does well in school -- an A/B student -- who struggled a lot with this assignment. Serena’s family was very upset at how stressed she had been during the assignment and they challenged the requirements of the project. Serena was in tears as she described her struggles. I reminded her that Nadia and I had been available for help during the project and that when I checked in with her (after noticing from checking the Google Doc that she was falling behind) she had reassured me that she had “figured it out now,” that she was fine, and that her group had helped her. I felt like I had let her down, but am also disappointed that she didn’t seek help because, as she shared with me at the SLC, she didn’t want to seem like a weak student. She was able to eventually get the story done, however, so we talked about how good that felt. We talked about how she had the fortitude to work through something difficult and how that should give her some confidence that she had the resources to work through the difficult tasks that lay ahead. Nadia had met with the family earlier (and had defused some of the frustration the family was feeling) but came over again toward the end of the discussion and reaffirmed some of the positives we had been focusing on.
This was yet another example of the level of support that a great collaboration could provide. I had never felt so supported as a teacher. I loved having an equal partner, someone who complemented my strengths and pushed me to be better, someone who I could brainstorm with, someone who I could vent to when it got stressful. It hadn’t always easy or comfortable, but the end result and the collegiality that resulted were worth it.
Exhibition Week
Exhibition was on Wednesday so that meant we had three days to get things edited, pictures finished, stories recorded and everything up on the Digital Portfolio. As one would expect, the week was fraught with set-backs, from the audio recording program crashing to last minute changes to the story, which then meant changing codes here and there. It felt rushed but we had no choice – Spring Break was the next week, so we had to be done.
Exhibition came and went. The students and their families enjoyed browsing the website with the stories, hearing the audio recording, and seeing the cover art. It wasn’t the best exhibition but it was sufficient. Although we’d had big ideas in our planning process, the realities of our project required some adjustments. About two weeks before the exhibition, as Nicole and I looked at how our project was unfolding and the time constraints before us, we made a choice about what was more important to us, and that was the quality of their work. Though we’d stuck to our due dates, the length of some stories dictated that more revision time was needed and also dictated that not every story would be recorded. We ended up devoting so much time to finishing the project itself that we’d been left with little time to implement many of those big exhibition ideas and still have a quality product. Our exhibition wasn’t flashy, but it celebrated our students hard work and creativity. In the end our students were proud of their work, regardless of how it was presented, and that was the most important thing.
Phase 5 -- Evaluating Our Performance: Post Project reflections and feedback
Project was done, exhibition was over, and now it was time to debrief. So the day after exhibition, Nadia gave all of her classes (76 students total since absences were high that day) a reflection and feedback survey about the project itself, what had been helpful, and what could be improved.
Given the positive reflections I’d received the week before as they turned in their stories, I was expecting the same from this new batch. However, when Nadia gave me the reflections she had received, I got a slightly different message. The open response questions seemed a bit more critical. I felt confused at first, but then in looking at the focus of the two sets of reflection questions, I could see why there had been a difference. The questions I had asked (What are you most proud of? If you had time to revise, what would you work on? Explain how effective you were in managing your time, etc) were about their work on the project and the decisions they had made as students. The questions that Nadia had asked (what did you enjoy about the project? What was most challenging about the project? How do you feel about the project timeline?) were focused around the structure of the project itself, and the decisions Nadia and I had made as teachers. Mine looked at the product; Nadia’s looked at the process.
What I found especially interesting was that the reflections around the process were often contradictory. For example, some students thought there wasn’t enough time while some thought there was too much; some liked that there were specific deadlines while some wished there had been more student choice. And yet, in looking at their responses to the question “What supports/project aspects were helpful during this project? Check all that apply,” it was clear that they had felt supported, with most students checking at least two supports and most students checking more than that.
There were several things I learned from looking at this data. Out of 76 respondents, to see so many of the supports that Nadia and I had worked on together listed as being helpful was very gratifying. I was also struck by the sheer number and variety of supports we had put in place. I noticed in looking through the responses that what some students found helpful others might not have, and vice versa. Several of these supports were the direct result of Nadia and me collaborating – that is, they might not have happened otherwise. For example, the project page and the project calendar came about as the result of our brainstorming together. Neither one of us has ever used a dedicated project page on any of our previous projects but thought it might be useful to have one place for all project materials instead of students having to go back and forth between our two class websites. And the project calendar wouldn’t have seemed so crucial if we hadn’t integrated the two disciplines and worried about students being able to keep due dates straight.
Another thing I noticed was the difference in helpfulness in the two areas of student collaboration. The revision groups in math were very often noted as being helpful whereas the Spotlight groups in English weren’t noted as often. Perhaps one explanation is that the revision groups were extremely well-structured and happened only once at the very end of the project. One the other hand, the Spotlight was done everyday for almost two weeks, and although it started out structured, it became looser and looser with each passing day as I attempted to integrate their suggestions. One student noted that instead of doing a spotlight every day, they should be every other day, and another thought that I should “make this graded. People slacked off.” At the same time however, several students noted how helpful the spotlights had been for them. Could this be a reflection of the uneven workload I had noticed earlier? Could it be that students who were always giving feedback but didn’t feel that they were getting any got tired of the process? Perhaps I should have mixed the groups up instead of keeping them the same. Perhaps I should have had more homogeneous groupings.
The support that the most students noted as being helpful was theGoogle Docs. This was a collaboration among us all, students and teachers. Students could help each other, and both Nadia and I could offer suggestions, ask questions, etc. This was also the support that allowed for the greatest balance of autonomy and collaboration. One of my fears in having students collaborate on Google Docs was that this level of collaboration -- intrusion into a solitary activity, might get in the way and impede the creative process. I did have a few students who said they felt uncomfortable putting anything on the Google Doc until they had worked on it a bit by themselves -- which I completely understood and respected -- so those students worked on word docs and then cut/pasted their writing into theGoogle Doc when they were ready to share. I was happy to see that it allowed for both autonomy and collaboration and that this support had been so appreciated.
There was one support in particular that was the result of Nadia’s individual work for the math portion of the assignment, and it required individual work from the students. This is a good reminder that while collaboration is great, time for solitary work and reflection is just as important and should be encouraged and nurtured. So where was the frustration coming from?
Understanding Student Perspectives
I decided to talk to the students about this discrepancy, to see if I could get to the bottom of some of the contradictions I was seeing and to better understand their perspectives. For each class I spent 15-20 minutes talking through some of their comments, and I learned a lot, both about project-planning and about myself as a teacher. First a few things they liked: they again re-iterated the helpfulness of theGoogle Docs, they liked the creativity of writing a story, they liked the time provided for working and for feedback, they liked that they only had one focus for the two classes, they liked the idea of the project.
And then a few things they didn’t like. Several students felt that pairing English and math in this way didn’t work – that it hurt their stories and got in the way of their creativity. Many talked about how difficult it was to integrate the codes in a realistic way. I wasn’t sure what to do with that information since such a response had been one of my fears going into this project. I found myself wondering if my initial concerns were justified and whether I should have followed my instincts. There’s no doubt -- English and math are difficult disciplines to pair. That’s just how it is. But I thought that we had bridged that chasm. Now, in listening to the student feedback I had to wonder if we had been fooling ourselves. But their stories really were great and they had worked through their difficulties and found creative ways to incorporate the codes. And their written feedback bears out how proud most of them were of their accomplishment, in both surveys. Would they have felt so proud if the task had been easier?
I realized that perhaps what I was hearing from them was the frustration that naturally comes with a difficult task, and that as a result of the difficulty, they had struggled. It wasn’t a straightforward, linear process, and perhaps this was a new experience for them. It wasn’t a matter of “do this, then this, then this and you’ll be done,” but instead a “do this, and then see if this works, and if it doesn’t try something else, and then maybe even start over.” It wouldn’t have mattered how we had structured the project or what supports we had included. This was one of those projects that was a different process for each student. Each of them had to navigate their own path -- and blazing one’s own path isn’t always comfortable or easy.
That’s not to say that I couldn’t have done a few things better. I knew that I could have.
One comment I heard in our discussions was they had wished I had done more instruction at first – more examples, more writing instruction. What I found especially interesting about this comment was that at the beginning of the project, when I was providing examples and some instruction around writing detective fiction, most of their exit cards were asking for less instructions because they just wanted to get started on the writing. I reminded them of this, and the fact that there had been resources up on the project website, but I understood their point. Perhaps I could have included a few more instructional days. And they offered a good suggestion in response – why not have stations where students could work on whatever they needed to focus on for that particular day – if they needed to write, or get feedback or get instruction about a specific concept from me then that’s what they did. I liked that suggestions and it’s one I will try in the future.
Some Lessons Learned
In thinking about the information I’d received, both written and through our discussions I came away with a couple of lessons and reminders around projects and about teaching:
First of all, I was reminded of what a privilege it is to do what I do every day with such thoughtful young adults. How invigorating to come to work knowing that the learning isn’t a one-way street – that every day we show up as evolving people, learning and growing from each other, ending each day a different person than we started. I loved their feedback and their thoughtful suggestions, and I love that I’m learning along with them.
And yet -- I can’t please everyone. Although student voice is always important and should be valued, at some point, as a teacher with years of experience, I need to listen to my instincts and make the call. So if I think my students need more instruction, I should do so even if they are asking for something different. It’s a kind of dance, really. The push and pull of collaboration – my decisions affect them and their decisions affect me. The challenge is to remain open to suggestions while remembering that ultimately, I’m leading.
My wonderings were both verified and challenged when a few days later I received an email from Nadia with some of her thoughts around the project and the student response. After reflecting on her own experience and how proud she was of the students’ work she said “I do wonder if the students feel the same way as I do. I think our experiences as teachers are very different than theirs as students. I'm not sure if they see the holistic learning process like we do, because at times I think they get bogged down by the deadlines, requirements and stress of it all - but I do hope that they will look back and feel proud of the work that they did.”
In her survey, Nadia had also asked them “having completed the project, what 2 words describe how you feel about the entire project and process?”
Their responses show that they do feel proud of what they accomplished. And more than that even. Interestingly, post project, a new word rose to the top: fun. Many of the same words I had seen in previous exit cards were also included (proud, accomplished, relieved), but despite some of their criticisms, to see the word fun jump out like that was pretty gratifying.
Looking Back To Look Forward
As I looked back on some of the pre-project responses I got from students, I could see that many of the ways I wanted to be a more thoughtful teacher had been accomplished. I had wanted to provide leadership opportunities to students, and I had done so by enlisting the help of honors students. I had wanted to be fair and transparent in my assessment of the project,and I had done so in the critique they had done together and in their assessment of their own story. I had wanted to provide structures to help students with time management, and through our work together, Nicole and I had done so in the many supports we provided. I also saw the many areas where I could improve -- providing more models and changing up workshop groups and structures, to name a few.
As I thought about the ways I had wanted to grow as a collaborator and as a facilitator of collaborations, I could see that many of those goals had been accomplished as well. I understood the need to balance autonomy and collaboration; I understood the importance of shared workload and shared goals; I understood the importance of good communication, of being OK with discomfort, of the dangers of over-collaboration. I understood the importance of letting go. I couldn’t wait to get started on my next collaboration
Staff retreat time and I was ready to go. I’d read about collaboration, thought about it, and was ready to get going. With one tweak. My original intention was to work with Otis, the music teacher, again and document our collaboration, but a few weeks ago, our director changed the schedule around so that Otis would be teaching juniors for only half of the semester and I would be teaching all 100 for the whole year. So I wouldn’t have a dedicated partner as I did last year. What was I going to do? I was feeling a little panicked, but then…aha…wait! This might just be a great opportunity to try many different kinds of collaboration and document those experiences! I could pair with people on my team that I’ve never partnered with before. This was going to be great!
But after our first meeting as a team, I felt frustrated. I had pitched the idea of working together on a big junior team project revolving around communication since the Pablo, biology teacher, was looking at the evolution of sound and pairing with Otis to recreate animal sounds in songs and I thought it might be cool to incorporate written communication in English class and maybe even history class. But there were no takers. I had to resist the urge to take this personally, but it wasn’t easy. I voiced my frustrations to Nadia, the 11th grade math teacher, that I was trying to collaborate with bio and music but they seemed resistant, that they had their own thing going and didn’t want an additional discipline in there. And then Nadia said…”Well, what about me?”
Well of course. I would love to collaborate with Nadia. It made so much sense! After all, we were the two teachers on our team who would teach all 100 students all year. It would be easy to schedule. And Nadia is one of those extremely thoughtful and generous teachers that everyone enjoys working with. But English and math? That didn’t make as much sense. They seem, well, opposite somehow. I found myself internally resisting this collaboration even though I loved working with Nadia. Why? What was I afraid of? That the project would feel forced? That the kids wouldn’t be into it? What kind of a project could we do together that would make sense? After talking about it further she reminded me of an idea for a project that she’d been wanting to do for a while – an encryption project. Ah yes, I remembered her mentioning that last year -- codes and code-breaking using math. But how would English fit in there? Well what if the kids created mystery stories like Encyclopedia Brown and included codes in the story as a clue? Like the Da Vinci Code! Yes! I walked away from our meeting excited at the possibilities…but within an hour, clouds of doubt moved in again.
The project sounded great, so why was I still hesitant? I guess it all boiled down to me having a hard time really buying in to this as a rigorous project. Mystery writing, creative writing, seemed too fluffy to me. I wanted to create a project that used the kids’ analytical and essay-writing skills. I feel very strongly about the skills I want to develop in my students in order to prepare them for the rigors of college. Past students have expressed to me how grateful they were for the essay writing and research instruction, so I was feeling the responsibility of teaching those skills.
I was feeling uncomfortable about it all and found myself wishing at that point that I had focused my research on writing in the classroom, my classroom, looking at student voice, and social justice as I had initially started out. Collaboration was too messy, too dependent on colleagues who might not want to collaborate. And with the colleague who did want to collaborate, I was worried that the project wouldn’t be rigorous and that I would have to let go of too much control of my curriculum.
Hold on. What was that I just said? After all of my reading about barriers to collaborating, did I really just say that I wished I could just stay in my classroom? Did I really just say that I was afraid of letting go of my curriculum? Did I smell hypocrisy here? It would seem so. Apparently, just because I was aware of the barriers to collaboration didn’t automatically mean I was immune to them. It would seem that even as I’d been complaining about some of my colleagues’ responses, I’d been putting up some barriers of my own. It was time to do a little reflecting.
And in my reflection, I was humbled. I realized that I had experienced and doled out some barriers to collaboration I’d read about. Hopefully I’d learned from this, and now it was time to press forward. I reminded myself of the value in collaboration, and I became re-inspired to experience as many collaborations as I could in order to capture and record what works. With renewed commitment, I decided I would try to do both – collaborate with math on our encryption project as an official integrated project and collaborate with the other disciplines in a more superficial way – “collaboration light,” if you will, by being a support/supplement to my colleagues’ classes. Maybe I could split my curriculum to more closely match the bio and history classes, since half of my students would take bio for two hours a day and half would take history for two hours per day. At the semester, they would switch. So what if I adjusted my curriculum to focus more on naturalist literature for the bio half and protest literature for the history half?
That would be a challenge for me, juggling different curriculum on top of effectively teaching and providing feedback for all 100. But it seemed to make sense. Students would hopefully see the connections between the disciplines and perhaps wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed. And then at the same time, Nadia and I could plan and implement our integrated encryption project. That would be a lot of collaborating that I as a teacher could experience and document!
And that would be a lot of collaborating that my students would experience and that I could document! I’d already seen from the literature and my own experiences the variety and different levels of collaboration and how they impact teachers, but what about students? I imagined that different kinds of collaborations affected students differently. But how? My guess was that some collaborations would create a kind of harmony within the class, create a kind of order, if the collaboration made sense. It would also seem that a forced collaboration would create disharmony and frustration. So if I were to work to support the other two classes, as well as work on a focused, structured integrated project for all 100 students, would this create more harmony or would it create confusion within the class? In what ways would students benefit and in what ways would they not? And I wondered if students would have a preference among the different collaborations after having experienced both kinds.
And what about academically? How would these collaborative projects foster student autonomy, critical thinking, and curiosity. How would these collaborative projects impact student learning? If one of my barriers to collaboration was the sense of responsibility I have in preparing them for college, would trying these collaborations help me answer these questions and ease some of my fears?
Listening to student perspectives
To start to answer some of these questions, I surveyed my afternoon class of 26 students to get a sense of what they thought about integrated projects and the collaborations that their teachers had done in the past. I wanted to see what their attitudes were now, what had worked in the past, and what hadn’t worked. This would also let me see how or if their opinions changed as we experienced these different collaborations together.
One of the first questions I asked them was this: “What are the benefits of projects that incorporate more than one subject? (circle all that apply)” I was struck, and quite impressed, that the largest number of responses, as can be seen in the table below, reflected those attributes of critical thinking that we all hope to develop in our students – broadening perspectives, making connections, deepening explorations, and increasing creativity. I could see through their responses that perhaps my concerns about content loss could be alleviated by the achievement of these important skills. If I could develop projects that fostered student autonomy, critical thinking, and curiosity, weren’t those the exact skills I hoped that my essay writing and research skills would develop? This gave me something to think about and to reach for in my project development. Another bit of information that struck me: it was clear even from just this one response that they saw the benefits of collaboration. This was great news since I wouldn’t encounter much negativity around projects once I launched them.
One of the next questions I asked them was this: “Which of the skills you’ve learned through interdisciplinary projects do you think will most benefit you in the workplace?” In looking at these responses I was struck by the skills that weren’t chosen. I found it especially surprising that no one chose leadership as a primary benefit of doing project work. I could see why no one would choose compromising since that could fall under the “working with others” category (since there is so much compromise involved there). But leadership skills? This presented some interesting possibilities. Should I be working harder to develop those leadership qualities that contribute to success in the workplace and in school? If so, how? And what about responsibility and time management? Shouldn’t the numbers be higher for these? How could I incorporate opportunities for growth in both of these areas? This would be something I could work on in developing my own projects.
The next question asked them to think about the challenges of integrated projects: “What are the challenges of projects that incorporate more than one subject? Circle all that apply.” This response I found interesting because of the multiple challenges students identified, as can be seen below. This also gave me pause. Here are some areas I should keep in mind as I developed my projects, thinking hard about how I was going to assess, and being fair and transparent about it, making sure the project made sense and didn’t feel forced, finding structures to help students with their time management, etc. This information was invaluable as it was helping me to become “deliberate student of my students” (McDonald, 2007, pg 4)
Phase 2 -- Jumping into the Collaboration Pool with Both Feet
To get the collaboration ball rolling, I decided to plan a couple of field trips, one where the history group would go to the downtown library to be exposed to research tools and primary sources, and the other where the biology group would go to Cabrillo and experience and then journal/describe their experiences as naturalist writers have done.
Cabrillo ended up being productive as far as understanding a little about where Pablo, the biology teacher, was coming from. We had an honest discussion about the value of integrated projects. He confessed that he had become more comfortable doing more projects within the classroom, as integration was sometimes difficult to achieve depending on the disciplines paired up. I told him I was of the opinion that integrated projects were good if they make sense and weren’t forced, and that there were levels of collaboration that could be beneficial. Even our field trip helped to give our students a sense of continuity between the two disciplines.
One thing that struck me about this conversation was it really highlighted the difference between collaboration and collegiality. Pablo is one of the most collegial teachers we have, always ready to help out in whatever way he can, and always ready with an encouraging word. Yet when it came to what was happening within the walls of his classroom, it was clear that he really valued autonomy and individual work. But was this such a bad thing? He’s a wonderful teacher. Shouldn’t he be allowed to teach in whatever way he sees is most beneficial to his students? Here was that balance between autonomy and collaboration that so much of the literature addressed. Perhaps the best thing I could do to further collaboration between us was to just back off and to be open to opportunities for integrations that supported these other two classes, rather than intruding upon their curriculum.
To that aim, the next week I decided to focus my students’ second essay on current events tied to either historical events or a controversial biological issue (depending on what class they were in). I thought that perhaps a logical, relevant project would emerge or at least, a feeling of continuity or connection for the students. The prompts for history were easy for me to generate since my students last year had done a similar essay, so I didn’t really need to get Lorelei’s feedback or help. I just told her about the essay and how I hoped it could connect to her class (which I realized later wasn’t very collaborative of me). The science topics on the other hand required a little help since I wasn’t really up on the latest science controversies. I sent the Pablo a list of possible topics that the students and I had generated to get his feedback. He was receptive and really helpful.
In the following weeks, the essay planning and research was moving right along and I was starting to think I might just be on to something good. I loved that the students’ essays were focused around a discipline that they were already studying. I started thinking about other ways to integrate the disciplines, so I talked to Lorelei about possibly requiring a paragraph of background information in the essay where students would offer historical precedents and explanations about their topic. Then I asked if she would be open to checking for their historical understanding and accuracy, and providing the kids some suggestions for revision or further research. She was very receptive and encouraging. When I approached Pablo about the same thing, however, I could see him resisting. I talked to him later about it and it turned out that he was resistant more to the way he would give feedback, not the actual giving of feedback. He was open to discussing the students’ findings with them, but didn’t want to read their background paragraphs or provide written feedback. I was glad that I had taken the time to follow up with him to better understand his perspective. This highlighted for me the importance of communication between partners as I might have misunderstood his hesitation otherwise. And I also wondered about the risks that teachers take when they are asked to collaborate outside of their comfort zone or their area of expertise. I know that I’ve certainly resisted when asked to teach something outside of my passion or interest. This would be a good thing to remember in future attempts at collaboration. In any event, I was glad that both teachers had agreed to help with this activity in whatever capacity they felt comfortable.
As students continued work on their essay, however,I was starting to feel a bit fragmented. I was finding that I had been devoting too much of my mental energy in trying to find connections between classes and wasn’t spending enough time making connections within my own class. There had been many days lately where I was feeling unprepared, with many mornings finding me hastily trying to gather my thoughts together before class or forgetting materials for a crucial part of the lesson. I didn’t feel like I had time to really think through my lessons. This wasn’t like me. And I was feeling anxious because I always felt behind or like I was forgetting something. Although students were making progress on their essay, I was also realizing that I was sometimes leaving out important points of instruction and having to backtrack in order to fill in the information needed. My curriculum didn’t feel coherent. My confidence in myself was shaken.I realized that I needed to change something. But what?
Distinguishing between Collaboration and Coordination
In thinking about it, I realized that in trying so hard to collaborate with everyone, I had undermined the planning and cohesion of my own class. I was trying to collaborate in too many ways and at times, I realized, I was the only one collaborating. I thought about the word itself: Co-labor-ation – co labor, an equal sharing of work. Collaborating only works when there are two or more parties involved. It can’t work with just me trying to complement another person’s class. That’s very one-sided and not very gratifying work. Collaboration only works if there is a shared workload. And I realized that just as collaboration and collegiality are different, so is collaboration different than coordination. Both are valuable in their own way, but the goals are different. Collaboration seems to be a more extended and integrated endeavor with a shared purpose and shared work, whereas coordination is more about individuals supporting each other so that the organization run smoothly -- but with each person still doing their own thing.
Another thing I realized as well was that if one of the barriers to collaboration is holding on too tight to one’s subject matter (which was a problem for me initially in the Encryption project), I also realized that the opposite was also true – I was letting go of my curriculum too much. I was trying so hard to collaborate with everyone else that I was losing sight of my own class and my own subject and my class was losing its coherence. This was that balance between collaboration and individuality that Fullen and Hargreaves had discussed. I imagined that if I continued in this way, the quality of my teaching would suffer and I would get completely burned out. With that in mind then, I decided to back off on the syllabus integration and focus more on what was best for my class – not discarding it altogether, but trying to make the coherence of my class my first priority. And then once Nadia and I started work on our encryption project, hopefully I would use the lessons learned here to make a project that was truly integrated – and perhaps more gratifying.
So if my question is “How do teachers experience collaboration?” I had just experienced some of the frustrations that I had read about. And I had learned a thing or two. I also recognized that perhaps I had come into this a bit naively, with a dash of arrogance. Here I was, ready to impart my newly found knowledge about collaboration on my team and they would cheer and embrace whatever project I bequeathed to them -- which wasn’t a very collaborative mindset to begin with. I came to realize that I can’t will my partners to collaborate or make them WANT to collaborate. All I can do is respect that they are dedicated professionals who are passionate about their subject and be supportive, offer opportunities, and collaborate with those who are open to it -- and then work hard to make those collaborations work. But not at the expense of my own classroom harmony and coherence. I came to see that although my hope had been that these collaborations would create coherence across the disciplines, and maybe they did to a degree, the full benefits of collaboration can only be realized when both people int he collaboration are equally invested.
Phase 3 -- Swan Dives and Belly Flops: Breakthroughs and ah-ha moments
On our next staff day, our task for the day was to “do the project first.” This is part of the project planning process where teachers actually do or make whatever it is they are asking their students to do. There are several benefits to this, the biggest being that teachers can see what the stumbling blocks are, and can better prepare the students or scaffold the project for a better outcome. Because Nadia and I were planning to launch our encryption project soon, we thought that we should work together to see what we could discover. This activity ended up being not only very helpful and informative in our project planning, but also a fun thing that Nadia and I got to do together.
Since part of our project would involve writing a short mystery story using codes to help solve the mystery, we worked together to write a story and then embedded codes in the story to help solve the mystery. From this activity, we were able to see that the work on the project didn’t have to be perfectly synced – the mystery writing could continue even if the codes hadn’t all been taught yet, since all we had to do was leave a space in the story where another clue would be revealed. I sat at the computer composing out loud as Nadia threw in plot twists and places where a clue could be included. This was a great example of a collaboration that was shared in work load, ideology, goals, personality, etc. And ultimately, this was a gratifying and informative activity – and a great way to start our project.
A great by-product emerged from this as well. We were asked to work in the same room as the rest of our team, and in the midst of that, Lorelei and I were able to talk about an upcoming assignment for her class. She was going to have her students write a research paper on a social injustice – which was very similar to the essay they were currently working on in my class – and what she had agreed to give them feedback on in the next week or so. So I suggested that they use the topic they were currently researching in my class and dig deeper in her class, making historical connections. It made sense (in my mind) to have students extend the research and writing that they were already doing instead of starting a new, but very similar kind of essay for another class. This kind of overlap was something I had run across when I was in England the previous year, where teachers were teaching similar concepts or content without realizing it – creating a repetitive experience for the students. Although she listened to my suggestions, this didn’t seem like something she wanted to collaborate on and I was reluctant to press further. I’d just have to wait and see.
Parallel Play
In thinking through this experience I was reminded of my children when they were younger and would engage in something called parallel play, first identified by Mildred Parten in 1932, where they weren’t really playing with the other children, but along-side them. Each child would occasionally look up to see what the other children were doing, while at the same time staying focused and engaged in their own pursuits. There seemed to be a similar dynamic going on at times on my team. I could see that most of our work as a team wasn’t collaboration as much as parallel work. Certainly there was benefit to this -- we could learn from watching each other -- but it seemed like our work could be so much richer if we worked together a little more. For instance, Lorelei and I seemed to each be doing our own thing, not really sharing what was going on in our classes, and as a result we were missing opportunities to work together on projects or even content that would allow us to go deeper and create a richer experience for our students. I decided that if I were going to have meaningful collaborations I needed to start communicating more -- and better.
I also realized that I was making some assumptions about my colleagues’ attitudes and eagerness to collaborate. I needed to talk with them to see if my thinking and assumptions were accurate, and to better understand their perspectives.
Building Collegiality: “Ole”
To start that ball rolling, I invited my team to lunch, my treat, so that we could talk about collaborating, projects, etc. Through this conversation, I hoped that I could better understand any barriers out there and possibly start to work through a few. In the midst of our lunch conversation it became clear that they all saw the benefits of collaboration on integrated projects, for both teachers and students. Otis observed that integrated projects were “more like 'real life'” in that often in the real world students would be asked not only to collaborate but to merge different disciplines; Pablo mentioned the depth that integrated projects offer -- that students could “see the issues or topics through very different lenses” Nadia mentioned student engagement since there would be “ more buy in if [students are] more interested in one subject.” As for the benefits to teachers they all mentioned the collegial support. I especially liked how Otis put it: “You're not completely on your own, which is nice.” Several also mentioned how nice it is to have another perspective and the fun that comes along with working on a project together.
At the same time however, they all recognized the challenges of collaborating for both students and teachers. For students it was mostly about maintaining interest over a long period of time and in multiple classes. If students are focusing on the same content for a long time, they all mentioned it could be difficult to maintain interest. Next was the question I was really after: What did they think were the challenges of integrated projects for teachers? The biggest difficulty mentioned was coordination and timing of content. Lorelei mentioned how difficult it is to do a long project around a content area that was only given a short amount of coverage time in her class and the fear that in focusing too much time on one specific content area, other content areas are lost. Pablo agreed and noted that it can be difficult where there are different “levels of sophistication and depth.” And they all mentioned the time involved in planning and how difficult it can be to carve out time to plan a project well – which they also quickly added was an area where administration could be a great support.
So I felt like I was starting to understand my colleagues perspectives a little better, but realized that much of what they had said, I had seen before in the literature (content loyalty, time)– so there were actually no big surprises in that regard. But there was something that emerged from this conversation that I hadn’t expected. The biggest insight to come out of that lunch wasn’t so much a deeper understanding of their attitudes around collaboration, but more a reminder of how much I genuinely liked the people I work with. As we sat around the table eating our lunch, we talked, laughed, joked, and ended up planning a possible team Halloween costume for the following week. And I realized just how important it is to have time to just have fun with the people you’re collaborating with – building bonds and connections that help carry you through the frustrating times. It had been a while since we’d done that and with all of the day-to-day activities and stress, our team had felt a little tense lately –but I could feel the tension melting away with each passing minute that we spent just enjoying each other’s company.
I remembered Fullen and Hargreaves discussing how even though collegiality and collaboration are different, collegiality is an important part of creating a collaborative culture. So to further build the collegiality that had re-emerged on our team, over the weekend I looked for mariachi band hats so that the team could all dress up for Halloween, as had been suggested during our lunch together. On Monday morning, Halloween, we all put on the red scarves and mariachi hats I’d found and then grabbed instruments from Otis’ room and positioned ourselves on the staircase to “serenade” the students as they entered the door. We liked it so much that we decided to do the same after lunch as the kids came back in. I felt like I was part of a team again, which in turn made me a much happier, more generous teacher. I felt supported, which I found really made a difference in how I approached our daily tasks. I also found that there was more willingness to collaborate after this as well. This reflected Jarzabkowski’s (1999) observation that through collegiality “teachers’ daily work is improved because teachers are better prepared to support one another” (Defining Collaboration and Collegiality section).
Collaboration attempt #1: “a worthwhile connection”
Students had just gotten to a place in the writing process where they would be getting feedback from both Pablo and Lorelei. To try to make the process as smooth as possible, I had created a sign-off sheet that Pablo and Lorelei could use for comments and suggestions. Because Pablo had been initially hesitant to participate in this activity, I rather timidly approached him about using one day of class-time to give his students feedback about their topics, and he was very open to it and appreciative of the sign-off sheet. Later I checked in with him after school and asked him about the process – how he had felt about it. I asked him if he thought it was a worthwhile activity – taking time from his class for him to ask kids about their research and evaluate their understanding of the science of it. I told him I wanted the kids to feel like they were accountable to someone besides me – someone with more expertise than me in order to up the stakes a little and so that they could see that connections between subjects. He said that checking in was fine, but that what he had really liked was the collaboration between him and me – that “having that connection between us as teachers was worthwhile and being able to support each others’ classes like that was worthwhile.” I found his comments really interesting. I hadn’t really considered the idea that the collaboration itself, interacting with another teacher, even if the product itself wasn’t great, was worth the effort. This seemed to speak to the desire for collegiality or cooperation rather than collaboration, Perhaps teachers like working with each other as long as that work doesn’t impact their curriculum too much. Seen in another way though, maybe these smaller collaborations -- “coordinations”-- were a stepping stone to deeper collaborations, that smaller collaborations build the trust and communication that are so important to a successful deeper collaboration.
I also checked in with Lorelei about how the process was going. She said that the process was fine, but that she was having to continue the conversations during lunch, her prep, and after school because she didn’t have enough time to devote to it in class. This was certainly not my intention and I felt bad for creating extra work for her. It again emphasized for me the importance of the shared purpose of collaboration because in this case the integration felt tacked on and not part of Lorelei’s curriculum and the goals she had for her class. In reflecting upon Pablo and Lorelei’s feedback on the process, I didn’t think I’d try this type of collaboration again as it didn’t seem to be beneficial to the teachers involved.
But what about the students? How had they experienced this collaboration?
Students’ experiences with collaboration: “Pablo knew more...”
I knew how I had experienced the recent collaborations between classes, but I was curious to know what my students had thought of the experience so I asked 91 of my 103 students the following question: “What did you think of the essay requirement to have either Pablo or Lorelei check your background information? Please explain thoroughly” I then categorized their responses in the following ways: Positive (words like help, good, great, enjoyed), Neutral (not sure, didn’t matter, pretty good), Mixed (chaotic but helpful), Negative (not helpful)
Interestingly, the responses were generally positive. I have to admit that I was surprised. My own experience in trying to make this collaboration work had been rather frustrating, so I guess I had assumed their experience would have been negative. I learned a couple of things from looking at their responses.
The first thing I noticed was that a couple of responses spoke of the chaotic nature or “tacked on” feel of the requirement. For example, one student said “[I]t was a creative idea but you should make sure they have time to do so,” and another wrote “It didn’t help me out because we didn’t have much time to talk.” This was indicative I think of the one-sided nature of the collaboration and some of the frustration I felt. If both teachers aren’t invested and contributing to the activity, then it could feel exactly as one student described it: “tedious” – for both teachers and students.
The second thing I learned was that even as uncoordinated and chaotic as it felt to them at times, most of them really valued and appreciated the connections between the classes. They liked getting another teacher’s expertise to help them “solidify our arguments,” and “check the validity of the information I had already gathered.” They also felt that the cross-discipline focus of the essay offered them “more things to expand on and also a different perspective on my issue,” and it pushed them “to be more well-read” on their topic.I particularly liked this comment: “I enjoyed that because Pablo, no offense, knew what I was talking about more than you did so he could offer more relevant feedback and other new ideas for my topic.” So maybe I should try this type of activity again, but just make sure I better communicate and coordinate with my partners. This was something I would have to work on. It would also appear from their feedback that most students benefit any time teachers work together, even if the teachers don’t benefit as much because they appreciate the expertise and perspective that each teacher brings.
Collaboration attempt #2: “A fun way to learn”
In the midst of our conversation about the essay collaboration, Lorelei and I re-visited an earlier idea we’d had around a 1920’s/Great Gatsby joint activity and we realized that the timing worked for us to be able to do this. So we began planning to have a Gatsby/1920’s party for the next week. Lorelei and I worked to create a whole day of activities – from Gatsby/1920’s charades, to acting out their scenes (and watching each other’s performances) to the Charleston with the 10th grade humanities teacher. Again, the fun and positive energy between Lorelei and me and among the students was palpable. The classes really loved watching the other classes skits and the different interpretations, there was a lot of hamming it up, and dancing at the end of the day and laughing at how bad we all were at the Charleston was the perfect way to end it.
This was an instance where it was clear that teacher interaction really affected students positively. But was it collaboration or just coordination? The activity was a one-day event that just happened to fit into both of our schedules, but wasn’t something we had worked on for any extended period of time on, and in fact, much of the planning was individually done. But at the same time, this activity had the shared goals that I’d noticed were missing from our previous attempt. And compared to some of the more critical feedback I received from students about the essay collaboration attempt, the feedback around the Gatsby Party was all positive. For example, this quote “The Gatsby Party was a very relate-able way to reference to those events, to make the students connect and infer” was a pretty typical response with many students noting that the activity was a “fun way to learn.” Lorelei echoed that sentiment, saying that the students’ “work became their play.” She noted that being able to watch each others’ skits seemed to build cohesion amongst the grade. She said that the activity had been a lot of fun and that she would enjoy working on this together again.
Some lessons learned: the power of collegiality, cooperation, and collaboration
What I’d learned or was reminded of from the events of the last week was that people like to feel appreciated, and that a few laughs with my coworkers could open the doors of cooperation and collaboration. From these experiences, I could see the real value of collegial relationships. Collegiality supported, encouraged, and energized the collaborations I was having. Collegiality was an essential component of successful collaboration. Collegiality without collaboration certainly wouldn’t produce rich, deep results, but neither would collaboration without collegiality. From what I’d experienced, they were both crucial to creating significant, meaningful experiences for both student and teacher. And from what I was seeing, there were some clear differences between collegiality, cooperation, and collaboration. All are beneficial to teachers and students, but they are different. Collegiality creates and supports the trust and the relationships necessary to collaborate and cooperate. Cooperation seems to be a first step toward collaboration because it involves teachers coordinating and supporting each other, though often in a more superficial or short-term effort. And collaboration is a more integrated, deeper kind of work that involves the negotiation, struggle, and adjustments that working toward a common goal sometimes requires.
The interaction between collegiality and collaboration was also the subject of some discussion in the book Imagine by Jonah Lehrer (2012). In this book, he examines several innovative and creative companies, mainly Pixar for this section, and looks at the structures implemented to nurture a culture of collaboration. Lehrer noticed that these companies really value each individual but saw the power of collaboration and went to great lengths (strategically placed bathrooms for one; multiple cafes and pubs on sight for another) to ensure that colleagues ran into each other often. Sometimes the conversations were more collegial (How’s the family?, etc) but sometimes they became spontaneous opportunities for sharing ideas or to get feedback. As Lehrer observes “The Latin crest of Pixar University says it all: Alinus Non Diutius, which means ‘alone no longer’” (151).
To summarize what I had learned through through my first attempts at collaborations, I came away with a clearer sense of what collaboration is and isn’t, and I learned the importance of communicating with my partners and with students. I felt ready to jump into planning with Nadia for our upcoming Encryption project.
Phase 4 – Finding a Stride; Perfecting the Stroke: The Encryption Project
Planning
Nadia and I had been planning our project off and on for the last few months, but we were able to carve out several good chunks of time to really dig into the planning and share everything we’d be thinking about over the last few months. Those focused hours of planning cleared away any nervousness I’d had about the project. The more we talked and planned, the more comfortable and excited I felt about the project. I felt my attitude shifting and learned something about myself in the process.
I realized I might be a little more of a control freak than I had thought, especially when it came to my classroom. I have high standards (as do most teachers) – but I was realizing that this might actually be content loyalty in disguise. I’d always had clear ideas about what my students need for college, and while this is important, I realized that I needed to be more open to creative approaches in achieving these goals. Because what were my goals really? I hoped that they would find their writing voice, that they would have a general knowledge of how a sentence is put together, that they would exercise their critical thinking skills. Couldn’t I achieve all of this through more creative means? If my goal was to get them to read more and to write more, certainly I could find creative ways to engage them in critical reading and writing. It didn’t need to look like it had always looked.
I also noticed a pattern in our planning that seemed to work well for Nadia and me. Nadia and I would meet and then separate to work individually and then meet and compare plans and ideas and then work again individually…each time building on each other’s discoveries and plans. We got into a pattern of talking for about 15 min and then very naturally retreating back into our own thoughts, individually searching online for things that would support what we’re doing or adding to the Google Doc we had created. And then after about 15 minutes we would naturally come back together to continue our discussion. During these discussions, we would constantly build upon each other’s ideas and make connections as we went, sometimes looping back around and throwing ideas out, playing with ideas to see what would work and what wouldn’t. This became a nice balance of collaboration and autonomy/individuality, giving us space to be creative in our own way within our classrooms, much as Hargreaves and Fullan (1999) mentioned about the need to balance autonomy and collaboration.
Planning successes and strategies
There were a couple of other tricks and tools we used in our planning as well:
Using Technology -- First of all, as I mentioned above, we worked together off of aGoogle Doc that we added to as we talked and that we also added to when we were planning individually. This allowed us to see what the other had added – which in a way was still planning collaboratively but at the same time, not really since we had the space and time to really think things through at our own pace.
Thinking about the exhibition -- We decided to start our planning with the exhibition and what we wanted for that – and as we talked this through our product changed. I went into our first big project planning meeting thinking I would have the kids collect their stories into a book, but by the time we were done we had decided to collect them digitally, use qr codes, have hyperlinks to math explanations – create a website with a list of student names so that people could click on stories and then read . And then, the icing on the cake -- in our research we had come across a website that had old time CBS radio mysteries so the final step would be for students to record their mystery in the old time radio fashion, complete with dramatic organ and sound effects. We were giddy with excitement by the end of the planning session.
Creating extended planning time -- Another important strategy, which Nadia and I both observed added to our productivity, was that we planned off campus at a local coffee shop, free from distractions, and were able to plan for two straight hours. This is not something that is easy for us to accomplish at school during the school day as there are just too many other things pulling at us. As if to illustrate this, our next planning session, which took place at school as Nadia was covering for another teacher, went nowhere because there were constant interruptions and we would lose track of what we had been talking about. As reluctant as I was to give up my time outside of school, it became apparent that having that uninterrupted time to plan was crucial – not for every planning session, but at least once or twice to have an extended and focused time to think about the project was important. And it was fun.
The launch -- During our planning sessions, Nadia and I agreed that we wanted to have a big launch for the project. We thought that a scavenger hunt at the park down the street using compasses, clues and QR codes (see below) would be just the kind of activity that would be involving, active, and interesting for them – as well as a sneaky way for them to get information about the project! It was a big activity to launch a big project and would have been overwhelming if it had been an individual endeavor, but between the two of us, it was more fun than work -- Nadia created a website, bought compasses, and tags while I worked on the scavenger hunt questions and found links for the answers that we could convert into QR codes. And then together over the weekend we put everything together and placed the codes throughout the park so that we were ready for Monday.
So-whats:
In thinking about the planning process, not only was I noticing that the project benefited from having two of us work on the activities, but I noticed that I was being much more creative, especially technologically, working with a partner. I was more inclined to push myself to try to incorporate new technologies because I knew that if I couldn’t figure it out, Nadia would help me or we’d figure it out together. I also noticed that the project was pushing me to go beyond what I’m comfortable with content-wise, exploring and making connections I hadn’t known existed but seemed obvious after they were made – detective fiction as a way to teach logic? Of course!! I was feeling energized and challenged and stimulated and excited!
The Project Launch
As I explained above, the launch of our project involved sending the students on a scavenger hunt. There were 10 stations and at each station 2 clues was presented: the first was to help them answer questions about our project and the second were coordinates and the number of paces to the next clue. Students were staggered so that they wouldn’t run into each other as they gathered clues. Students were randomly placed in groups of 10 with a paper bag that held a copy of the Da Vinci Code (needed to answer question #6 and the class reading for the project), a compass for using coordinates, a pencil, and the answer sheet for the questions. Our grade level partners were very supportive in giving us the afternoon for this project launch and in acting as support staff during the scavenger hunt, and even in helping students figure out some of the clues.
So after gathering all 100 juniors in the commons, explaining what we were about to do, identifying groups, passing out bags, and laying ground-rules, we were off to the park down the street. The clues were a mix of QR codes that took them to different websites with info about the project (movies, books we would use as well as a link to the newly created project website) and codes that they actually had to break. What struck me about this activity was how incredibly engaged most of the students were when it came to cracking the codes. They worked intently on the clues, helping and encouraging each other and showing a lot of persistence. It was interesting to see which students took the lead for some of the tasks. Of course there were the usual suspects in some cases, but there were a few not-so-usual suspects who really stepped up and got their team going.
Afterward, Nadia and I debriefed and we were both struck by the fun of the activity and that the majority of our students enjoyed the exercise. We loved the originality of it – we weren’t just standing up front going over a project sheet (though we did do that later). We also recognized that even with all of our checking and double checking there were a few errors in the scavenger hunt but were impressed with the students’ ability to figure it out in spite of the mistake – using reasoning and logic -- which is exactly the point of this project! With a successful launch under our belts, we were ready to get into the project work and lay some groundwork.
Over the next few days, Nadia and I both noticed that students are very engaged in the work we’re doing in the classroom. For my class, to provide a few models, we read detective stories, starting with Poe’s Murder at the Rue Morgue. As I read the story aloud to them you could have heard a pin drop as they listened – and they were quite irritated when at the end an orangutan is identified as the villain. We also read Sherlock Holmes and a little Dasheill Hammett. Toward the end of the week though, they were itching to start writing. It was great to see such enthusiasm. Nadia noticed this as well, saying that students had been reluctant to pack up and move on to the next class because they were so involved in trying to solve the codes and problems she’d been presenting to them. And she had noticed that some students who weren’t the typical strong math students were really into the work and really shining.
Teacher Collaboration and Differentiated Instruction
At the beginning of Week 2, Nadia and I worked on creating one calendar with all major due dates (see Appendix) so that kids would not be over or underwhelmed. We tried to space everything out evenly, trying to keep in mind deadlines and tests in other classes as well. We were pleasantly surprised at how everything we were doing in our respective classes seemed to complement each other. When I passed the calendar out, many students were surprised that we had included test dates for the history class as well. For my class I also created a handout that listed all of the steps to creating a detective story – but in recognizing that every writer approaches their writing in a different way, I decided against putting them in any hard and fast order, instead just leaving a line for check-off. The only thing I did require was that they create their main detective and a basic outline by the end of the week so that I could see the direction they were headed and give them some feedback.
I decided to use Google Docs to help support students in this process. Each student created a running Google Doc and shared it with me and a peer group of 4-5 students led by an honors student in order to facilitate feedback and workshops and to help me easily keep track of their progress. I loved the positive, happy energy in the classroom and the fun my students were having in creating their detective. At one point I had them introduce themselves and chat as their detective on Google Docs with the other students in their group (and I was able to join in on the conversation as well!) so that they could get a sense of what he/she would sound like. I enjoyed seeing the little quirks they were giving their detectives (one detective wears a monocle!) and the way they were talking about their detective as if he/she were a real person.
At the end of the week I solicited feedback through exit cards. A good number of students expressed a need for more guidance in the process and I wasn’t sure how to respond. A few days earlier in the midst of looking at models and going over some basics, I gave out an exit card asking the same questions – (What’s working? what could be improved? and questions?). Quite a few students responded that they just wanted to get on with it – that they wanted work time to start their story. But now that I had given them work time, other students were asking for more instruction or models. One of my hopes in using Google Docs was that perhaps in seeing each others’ stories and giving each other feedback, they would get some of the examples and models they were craving. I did get a lot of positive feedback about using Google Docs and several students had also appreciated the “Steps” handout I had given out to help them in the writing process, though I wondered if I should have included a model along with each of the steps. But I wondered, would that have limited the possibilities? How much is too much? Ultimately, my hope in this project was that they would become a little more independent, proactive, and build up some of the resilience that is so important to their future success. How could I support the autonomy and mastery that as Pink (2009) says are so vital to motivation? Where, I wondered, was the balance between supporting and enabling? I could see their point though -- a few more models would be helpful. I decided to spend some time focusing on our class reading, The DaVinci Code, to look at character development, code placement, and setting description.
I guess it all comes down to the fact that every student learns differently and that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. This was a good reminder that although I couldn’t please everyone, I could listen to their feedback, evaluate, and try to meet as many needs as possible. These exit cards were helping me to be a more responsive and reflective teacher. And the power of my and Nadia’s collaboration gave students more variety in how they would be supported.
I also loved that the exit cards were providing opportunities for some differentiation of instruction. When I saw a response where a student needed more guidance or had a suggestion, I could talk to that student individually. For example, I had one student write that he was stressed because he didn’t know how to end the story in a way that stayed true to the detective he had created, so I spent some time brainstorming ideas with him for a plausible ending. Another student wrote “you should have students watching more detective/crime movies and books before they begin the writing process” and I was able to have a conversation with her about the best use of our limited class time – that being able to have work-time and answer questions in class seemed like it would be more helpful, and that students could always watch movies at home.
Writing Our Stories and Supporting Individual Work
The tables are up against the walls to minimize distractions, jazz is playing and the lights are lowered -- and all I can hear is the clicking of the computer keys. Occasionally a couple of students stop to discuss their characters or plot. I keep thinking I need to DO something, but I resist the urge and just let them create, occasionally checking in on Google Docs to see what new twist they’ve included.
It had been a while since the class had been this engaged – which was wonderful. It also made me question what I was doing in class if this was unusual.
Midweek I put questions on the board at beginning of class to monitor experiences/attitudes
- Questions/concerns/needs for support
- 2 words that describe how you’re feeling about the project so far
As can be seen above, one word that came up repeatedly was stressed. I conferenced with those who responded in this way and from them learned that most of the stress was being caused by the story deadline. I tried to alleviate their fears and stress by explaining that we would have two full weeks of revision to fine-tune, add, delete, etc – and that the draft due on Tuesday was just a starting point. Many of them were also concerned about the integration of codes into their stories – they were worried it would feel forced and were very protective of their plots and characters. So I tried to help them brainstorm some possible solutions that made sense and offer encouragement.
The other word that came up often was the word excited. Repeatedly I had heard them say that they really liked their story and were having fun writing. I thought those were two pretty good adjectives to have emerged. I was glad they were feeling stretched, and I was also glad that they were enjoying the work that they were doing. Interestingly, one student said she didn’t feel that they were learning anything, that they were just writing – so I explained to her that she was correct – they were just writing and that a lot of the learning would come through the revision process. But to myself I was thinking “just writing?” -- that’s great! I was struck, though, that I was getting complaints from both ends of the spectrum -- the struggling students saying it was too stressful and the high-level students wanting more of a challenge. But I loved that I had a partner who I could work with in supporting and challenging students where they were.
The Collaborative Power of Google Docs
One thing I implemented that was successful was using Google Docs and employing honors students as peer editors for a group of four or five of their classmates. For most of the cases this worked wonderfully well. In exit cards my hope that the Google Docs would be a way to provide models was realized, as I was getting comments like “the chance to look at your peers stories and them looking at yours...helps me see what I’m missing and get new ideas,” and “I find it helpful. It helps me come up with more of my story.” Student editors also gave feedback to each other during honors meetings so that they would feel supported as well. Because they had shared their stories as Google Docs, they were able to see the progress that their fellow students had made and offer encouragement and suggestions. Several students surprised me in how thoughtful and detailed they were in their comments– much more than I could have been in reading 100 drafts and providing feedback. It was also helpful that Nadia was also shared on the Google Docs and had been able to read through and comment on their stories, as well as well as find examples of students who had creatively incorporated their codes. As can be seen from her thoughtful email to me below, using Google Docs was helpful in supporting students, as well as providing leadership opportunities:
I've been reading stories on and off all afternoon while I grade their first planning sheet and just wanted to share a quick reflection. They had a deadline Friday to turn in the detailed planning sheet of their first encrypted message, which so far they've been doing really well on ;) I'm making a point to try to comment on each student's story to let them know I'm reading/watching the progress on those too. It's helpful for me to know a bit about each story too so I can help them brainstorm codes/numbers to use within their own context.
I was thinking about how cool it is that you have them commenting on each other's stories. I am having a hard time reading Doug’s and figuring out how to follow it and what to say...and then I read Jed's comments and I'm so appreciative of Jed! It let's me see our kids in another way...Jed is usually so quiet and it is so cool to "hear" his voice giving feedback to another student. It is also great that we can track their progress (when they last edited, etc). I think I can use this same format once the codes get in there better and once they start testing out links to the "how they solved it" sections, if those areGoogle Docs too (not sure yet how we're going to do the final piece).
Anyways... what I like is that I'm really enjoying going over these...it's not so bad! It's time consuming for sure (I've only gone through 10 so far) but to me that is a good sign that you and I are both still having fun with this. Also, I haven't checked, but I think nearly everyone who was at school on Friday made the deadline for me which is also a good sign.
I was realizing more and more just how important the use of Google Docs had been for our project and our collaborations. I come back again to that balance between autonomy and collaboration. Collaboration is great, but time for solitary work and reflection is just as important and should be encouraged and nurtured.
Becoming Comfortable with Student Discomfort
Early in Week 4 one of the strengths of teacher collaboration was made apparent.
During 5th period one day I was “ambushed” by a small group of students in the class who said they were speaking for the whole class-- they challenged the do-ability of the project, asking for a reduction in the number of codes, saying that it felt forced, inauthentic, etc – that the codes were “ruining” their stories. This was the second time they had presented their concerns, but this time they were much more assertive. I listened patiently, tried to acknowledge their concerns, told them I would talk with Nadia later and that we would think about creative ways to address the issue. We talked as a class for about ½ hour. On the one hand I really appreciated the fact that they felt part of the process and strongly enough to address this – but on the other hand I was frustrated by their more aggressive approach and the fact that after we talked, those students put very little effort into their project during class.
After school I met with Nadia who told me that the same group of students had also challenged her. After thinking about their concerns, balancing the need for student voice with the entitlement that sometimes results, thinking about the integrity of the project, and wanting to challenge them in new ways – we decided to hold our ground. Quite honestly I might have caved if I didn’t have a partner to talk this out with, since their concerns about the difficulty of the task were legitimate– and Nadia felt the same. But instead of reducing the requirements or extending deadlines, we decided to offer after school support and time in class for them to brainstorm about creative ways to integrate the codes into their stories. We felt that this let them know that their voices had been heard, but put more of the responsibility on them.
I think this also demonstrates the limitations of student feedback. Certainly, listening to student’s concerns and input is always important, but in the end we, as experienced educators, need to feel comfortable making unpopular decisions for the group if that decision will help them grow in knowledge, perseverance, or character. Our students were having to struggle a bit, and that was uncomfortable for them. Understandably (and as is human nature) they wanted to eliminate the discomfort they were feeling. But Nadia and I knew that the longterm benefits derived from working through a difficult problem were worth the temporary discomfort they were feeling.
That night, in order to alleviate student concerns about the math portion of the project and to let them know that their concerns had been heard, Nadia put together a FAQ handout and provided examples from student stories to show how to incorporate their codes. She asked if I could pass these out to my morning classes so that they didn’t have to wait until the afternoon to get this info when they had her class. In going over the handout, I could see the tension levels decrease and the lightbulbs coming on. A lot of soft “ooohhs” could be heard as I went over the handout and as I talked with students individually. I spent a lot of class checking in with those students who I knew were struggling and trying to brainstorm, give feedback, try to think of creative ways to incorporate their codes. One thing I loved seeing was that they felt so passionately about their characters – they really wanted this to be a good piece of writing and were unwilling to compromise – which meant they would have to work really hard and be really creative to get it where they wanted it. My job was to just keep giving feedback, encouragement, examples, etc.
Student collaboration: Using Protocols to Aid Critique
Based on feedback from our earlier essay and wanting to make peer critique more helpful for my students, I decided to implement the Spotlight Protocol I mentioned earlier as a support int he revision process. The Spotlight is a critique protocol where the work of one person in a group is the focus of critique and discussion, revolving around questions or dilemmas that the presenter poses. To start things off, I enlisted the help of my honors students as they would act as the facilitators for each group. We practiced the protocol during our honors meeting and then we worked together to modify it to better meet their needs and to work with the time constraints of class. They suggested combining a few sections and shortening a few others. I started with this revised protocol in period 1– explained it to them, had them do it, and then continued to ask for feedback about what worked well for them and what needed to be adjusted. After each class I tweaked it a little so that by the time I got to 5th period, I had made some good adjustments.
The next day we tried it again and I just watched how it went, noticing a few other modifications that we could make and asking for students’ ideas around some of these possible adjustments. By the time we had finished, we had come up with our own protocol -- the 5x5 protocol (5 for presenting and questions; 5 for discussion with the presenter; 5 for discussion without the presenter; 5 for debrief, 5 for reflection). Enlisting student feedback in this process was very helpful for me on several different levels -- their suggestions were very thoughtful and it felt like the respect level in the classroom increased. Students felt like their experiences and opinions mattered, and as a result were more engaged in the process. As a result I found them to be very focused and thoughtful in the feedback they gave their peers during the 5x5 spotlight protocol.
The Excitement Builds
In week 5 Nadia and I felt like we had turned a bit of a corner on this project. Students were finishing their stories and feeling good about it – and I think that inspired other students to press on. I also think the 5x5 spotlights helped. I kept waiting for them to start complaining about having to do another one but instead, each day that I asked groups to decide who the next day’s spotlight would be, there were ready volunteers, and when I checked in with students they said that the spotlights had been very helpful. At the end of every class we went around the room and I had the spotlight person share out what they had gotten from that day’s protocol – most of the time the help had been around how to incorporate the codes in a believable way, but they were also getting feedback on dialogue, organization, and most recently (and a good sign) how to end. Even though a full draft was due the previous week, I decided to cut them some slack as long as I could see progress. My pushes for them to get more of their story completed was framed around how helpful it would be for them to get some solid feedback on their story in a spotlight before the final draft was due the following week.
Midweek I gave out exit cards with the following questions: 1. Status of your story (complete, almost, revising, pages left to write); 2. words to describe how you’re feeling about the project; 3. support? Questions?
Three of the classes were great – they worked hard, were clearly on task, and their exit cards reflected that with most comments positive or a combination of positive and negative words like “stressed” or “scared” – which I think is great! It means they’re having fun and being pushed at the same time.
One class was another story however. Students were talking and I had to re-direct a few times – and their cards reflected that with many requests for more time and words like “frustrated” or “rushed” as their 2 words. I later reminded them that they didn’t have any other homework in math or English and that we were giving them time to work or get help in class – but that they were not taking advantage of the time or help given. I told them that Nadia and I had done our part to provide the time and that it was on them to take advantage of the time.
When I compiled the cards from all four classes, I saw the same words I had seen on previous exit cards like “excited” and “stressed.” However, a new word -- “confident” -- also emerged. I was so happy to see that the stressed responses had diminish a bit and had been replaced by confidence.
The Plot Thickens
At our next check-in, Nadia and I worked through how we would exhibit the stories and whether or not to push ahead on the audio recording. We’ve decided that given the time constraints, we would just have each group chose one story to record (more if they wanted to or had time). As we looked at our little example story hanging n the wall, we knew what we needed to do next to support our students. We needed to record our story and see what the challenges were, how long it took, how the program worked, etc. We got out a computer, fired up Audacity (the program we planned for them to use) and read through the story trying to change our voices as different characters were introduced. It was fun to do and the end result was OK, but then we realized that we needed to more closely emulate their experience. So we asked two of the teachers who had made appearances in our story, Pablo and Sandy, to come read with us. I was surprised at how willing they were to do so and how into the story they were, adding dramatic pauses and even physically acting out some of the scenes. The next day at our morning meeting Pablo made a point of appreciating the effort we were putting into our project and talked about how much fun it had been to participate. The students also enjoyed listening and gave them a preview of the fun that lay ahead.
The last two days of the week were spent checking Google Docs to see how kids were coming along and having individual conferences with them, especially those lagging. Their final draft was due in just a few days. I had to really lean on a couple of kids who had produced very little and I worked for a long time with one very vocally dissatisfied student to help her brainstorm her story. She asked for an extension on the deadline since she had just figured out her story and I had to say no and remind her that I had been available during school, after school, and during lunch – and that she had needed to take some initiative to work through roadblocks. She agreed. I had the same conversation a couple of times with other students, but overall, most were in the final phases of their story. I found that I had to cut them a little slack on what a “full draft” looked like. For many of them it wasn’t quite full as they were still working out code placement and some had needed to change their story a bit. What I was happy to hear from them was how much they care about the quality of the story. Some had even changed their story because they didn’t want the code placement to seem forced.
The Home Stretch
In Week 6, as students were getting close to the deadline, student workshops continued to work pretty well but I’d started to notice a drop off in enthusiasm for the 5x5 Spotlights since we’d been doing them for almost two weeks. Some groups said that they needed the work time more than feedback time and admitted that they were rushing through the protocol, sometimes skipping steps. I wondered if I needed to step in and insist that they follow the protocol. But I allowed it, acknowledging that perhaps we had overdone the spotlight and trusting that they would do what was most helpful to creating something they were proud of. Many of them seemed to be naturally checking in with a few chosen students. But I worried about the few who didn’t seem to be doing this. And I realized that this equity was the beauty of protocols -- they create a space and opportunity for every student to be heard and have their work looked at. To make sure this was still happening, I enlisted the help of the honors students (those who were done) and paired them up with a few of these quieter students to provide feedback.
To add some variety to the feedback they were receiving as they worked on their final edits and proofreading, I put my students in groups of 4, grouped by how complete their story was or their strengths as a writer and then gave them a clean copy of the rubric I would use in assessing their work. I wanted them to internalize the requirements by assessing each others’ work and think about their own work in the process. I also wanted fairly homogeneous groups so that stronger students with more complete stories were receiving helpful critical feedback that pushed them. That would then allow me to concentrate on those students who were still stuck, perhaps having some of the same struggles as their group members, and seeing what we could do collectively to come up with solutions. This achieved what I’d hoped, as we were able to work together to help several students work through roadblocks, and one of my stronger writers made a point of telling me that this had been the most helpful feedback she’d received. At the end of the day I felt confident that every student would be able to turn in a story they were proud of.
In reflecting on this particular workshop, I was reminded of the shared workload requirement of successful teacher collaborations. For just as teachers enjoy the benefits and energizing effects of a shared workload and can get burned out when the work is unevenly distributed, students also enjoy a more even workload. The stronger students don’t want to always feel that they are having to support other students -- they need support and feedback as well so that they too can grow. And at the other end of the spectrum, it’s also important for weaker students to be trusted with leadership opportunities. I loved that by integrating two different disciplines, more of those leadership opportunities became available since some of my weaker writers were also some of Nadia’s strongest math students and had been able to support their fellow students in the math part of the story-writing process.
Reflections and Feedback
The stories were due on Wednesday, and along with a self-assessment and reflection I had students include two words to describe how they were feeling about the project. A couple of words I saw repeatedly were relieved, happy, and proud.
As you might imagine, in looking through their comments, I felt really good about the project. They felt a sense of accomplishment and pride in their work and there is nothing a teacher likes to hear more than this.
Teacher collaborations: supporting innovation and perseverance
Now came the fun part! For the next few days, students would work together to record their stories. The days were very productive and it was wonderful to see the student’s creativity and innovation come out -- for example, Tommy was missing a group member today, so he and Walter came up with the idea of using a computer generated voice with a British accent to fill the roll. Jai found some honky tonk, saloon music to go along with his wester themed detective story, Chris had already found a website with sound effects, and everywhere I checked, students were having fun with their stories. During third period, I overheard one girl say to her group “Now I understand why they wanted us to do this -- it’s fun!” That was really nice to hear, given the earlier stress and frustration they’d felt in creating their story.
This week was also time for our Student-Led Conferences (SLCs) where students reflect on the progress and work they are doing in all of their classes. During SLCs I had students share the writing process and their stories with their parents and how they were feeling about their story. Two conversations during our conferences really stayed with me. One was with a student, Lewis, who has struggled in the past with writing and getting his assignments in on time and complete. His mom was excited about how he had worked so diligently on his story every night, and had ended up writing a 14 page story when the requirement was 6. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the way Lewis looked at me, the light in his eyes, when I asked him if he felt good about his story, and how he had so quickly and confidently replied “yes.”
The other conversation was the other end of the spectrum -- with a student, Serena, who normally does well in school -- an A/B student -- who struggled a lot with this assignment. Serena’s family was very upset at how stressed she had been during the assignment and they challenged the requirements of the project. Serena was in tears as she described her struggles. I reminded her that Nadia and I had been available for help during the project and that when I checked in with her (after noticing from checking the Google Doc that she was falling behind) she had reassured me that she had “figured it out now,” that she was fine, and that her group had helped her. I felt like I had let her down, but am also disappointed that she didn’t seek help because, as she shared with me at the SLC, she didn’t want to seem like a weak student. She was able to eventually get the story done, however, so we talked about how good that felt. We talked about how she had the fortitude to work through something difficult and how that should give her some confidence that she had the resources to work through the difficult tasks that lay ahead. Nadia had met with the family earlier (and had defused some of the frustration the family was feeling) but came over again toward the end of the discussion and reaffirmed some of the positives we had been focusing on.
This was yet another example of the level of support that a great collaboration could provide. I had never felt so supported as a teacher. I loved having an equal partner, someone who complemented my strengths and pushed me to be better, someone who I could brainstorm with, someone who I could vent to when it got stressful. It hadn’t always easy or comfortable, but the end result and the collegiality that resulted were worth it.
Exhibition Week
Exhibition was on Wednesday so that meant we had three days to get things edited, pictures finished, stories recorded and everything up on the Digital Portfolio. As one would expect, the week was fraught with set-backs, from the audio recording program crashing to last minute changes to the story, which then meant changing codes here and there. It felt rushed but we had no choice – Spring Break was the next week, so we had to be done.
Exhibition came and went. The students and their families enjoyed browsing the website with the stories, hearing the audio recording, and seeing the cover art. It wasn’t the best exhibition but it was sufficient. Although we’d had big ideas in our planning process, the realities of our project required some adjustments. About two weeks before the exhibition, as Nicole and I looked at how our project was unfolding and the time constraints before us, we made a choice about what was more important to us, and that was the quality of their work. Though we’d stuck to our due dates, the length of some stories dictated that more revision time was needed and also dictated that not every story would be recorded. We ended up devoting so much time to finishing the project itself that we’d been left with little time to implement many of those big exhibition ideas and still have a quality product. Our exhibition wasn’t flashy, but it celebrated our students hard work and creativity. In the end our students were proud of their work, regardless of how it was presented, and that was the most important thing.
Phase 5 -- Evaluating Our Performance: Post Project reflections and feedback
Project was done, exhibition was over, and now it was time to debrief. So the day after exhibition, Nadia gave all of her classes (76 students total since absences were high that day) a reflection and feedback survey about the project itself, what had been helpful, and what could be improved.
Given the positive reflections I’d received the week before as they turned in their stories, I was expecting the same from this new batch. However, when Nadia gave me the reflections she had received, I got a slightly different message. The open response questions seemed a bit more critical. I felt confused at first, but then in looking at the focus of the two sets of reflection questions, I could see why there had been a difference. The questions I had asked (What are you most proud of? If you had time to revise, what would you work on? Explain how effective you were in managing your time, etc) were about their work on the project and the decisions they had made as students. The questions that Nadia had asked (what did you enjoy about the project? What was most challenging about the project? How do you feel about the project timeline?) were focused around the structure of the project itself, and the decisions Nadia and I had made as teachers. Mine looked at the product; Nadia’s looked at the process.
What I found especially interesting was that the reflections around the process were often contradictory. For example, some students thought there wasn’t enough time while some thought there was too much; some liked that there were specific deadlines while some wished there had been more student choice. And yet, in looking at their responses to the question “What supports/project aspects were helpful during this project? Check all that apply,” it was clear that they had felt supported, with most students checking at least two supports and most students checking more than that.
There were several things I learned from looking at this data. Out of 76 respondents, to see so many of the supports that Nadia and I had worked on together listed as being helpful was very gratifying. I was also struck by the sheer number and variety of supports we had put in place. I noticed in looking through the responses that what some students found helpful others might not have, and vice versa. Several of these supports were the direct result of Nadia and me collaborating – that is, they might not have happened otherwise. For example, the project page and the project calendar came about as the result of our brainstorming together. Neither one of us has ever used a dedicated project page on any of our previous projects but thought it might be useful to have one place for all project materials instead of students having to go back and forth between our two class websites. And the project calendar wouldn’t have seemed so crucial if we hadn’t integrated the two disciplines and worried about students being able to keep due dates straight.
Another thing I noticed was the difference in helpfulness in the two areas of student collaboration. The revision groups in math were very often noted as being helpful whereas the Spotlight groups in English weren’t noted as often. Perhaps one explanation is that the revision groups were extremely well-structured and happened only once at the very end of the project. One the other hand, the Spotlight was done everyday for almost two weeks, and although it started out structured, it became looser and looser with each passing day as I attempted to integrate their suggestions. One student noted that instead of doing a spotlight every day, they should be every other day, and another thought that I should “make this graded. People slacked off.” At the same time however, several students noted how helpful the spotlights had been for them. Could this be a reflection of the uneven workload I had noticed earlier? Could it be that students who were always giving feedback but didn’t feel that they were getting any got tired of the process? Perhaps I should have mixed the groups up instead of keeping them the same. Perhaps I should have had more homogeneous groupings.
The support that the most students noted as being helpful was theGoogle Docs. This was a collaboration among us all, students and teachers. Students could help each other, and both Nadia and I could offer suggestions, ask questions, etc. This was also the support that allowed for the greatest balance of autonomy and collaboration. One of my fears in having students collaborate on Google Docs was that this level of collaboration -- intrusion into a solitary activity, might get in the way and impede the creative process. I did have a few students who said they felt uncomfortable putting anything on the Google Doc until they had worked on it a bit by themselves -- which I completely understood and respected -- so those students worked on word docs and then cut/pasted their writing into theGoogle Doc when they were ready to share. I was happy to see that it allowed for both autonomy and collaboration and that this support had been so appreciated.
There was one support in particular that was the result of Nadia’s individual work for the math portion of the assignment, and it required individual work from the students. This is a good reminder that while collaboration is great, time for solitary work and reflection is just as important and should be encouraged and nurtured. So where was the frustration coming from?
Understanding Student Perspectives
I decided to talk to the students about this discrepancy, to see if I could get to the bottom of some of the contradictions I was seeing and to better understand their perspectives. For each class I spent 15-20 minutes talking through some of their comments, and I learned a lot, both about project-planning and about myself as a teacher. First a few things they liked: they again re-iterated the helpfulness of theGoogle Docs, they liked the creativity of writing a story, they liked the time provided for working and for feedback, they liked that they only had one focus for the two classes, they liked the idea of the project.
And then a few things they didn’t like. Several students felt that pairing English and math in this way didn’t work – that it hurt their stories and got in the way of their creativity. Many talked about how difficult it was to integrate the codes in a realistic way. I wasn’t sure what to do with that information since such a response had been one of my fears going into this project. I found myself wondering if my initial concerns were justified and whether I should have followed my instincts. There’s no doubt -- English and math are difficult disciplines to pair. That’s just how it is. But I thought that we had bridged that chasm. Now, in listening to the student feedback I had to wonder if we had been fooling ourselves. But their stories really were great and they had worked through their difficulties and found creative ways to incorporate the codes. And their written feedback bears out how proud most of them were of their accomplishment, in both surveys. Would they have felt so proud if the task had been easier?
I realized that perhaps what I was hearing from them was the frustration that naturally comes with a difficult task, and that as a result of the difficulty, they had struggled. It wasn’t a straightforward, linear process, and perhaps this was a new experience for them. It wasn’t a matter of “do this, then this, then this and you’ll be done,” but instead a “do this, and then see if this works, and if it doesn’t try something else, and then maybe even start over.” It wouldn’t have mattered how we had structured the project or what supports we had included. This was one of those projects that was a different process for each student. Each of them had to navigate their own path -- and blazing one’s own path isn’t always comfortable or easy.
That’s not to say that I couldn’t have done a few things better. I knew that I could have.
One comment I heard in our discussions was they had wished I had done more instruction at first – more examples, more writing instruction. What I found especially interesting about this comment was that at the beginning of the project, when I was providing examples and some instruction around writing detective fiction, most of their exit cards were asking for less instructions because they just wanted to get started on the writing. I reminded them of this, and the fact that there had been resources up on the project website, but I understood their point. Perhaps I could have included a few more instructional days. And they offered a good suggestion in response – why not have stations where students could work on whatever they needed to focus on for that particular day – if they needed to write, or get feedback or get instruction about a specific concept from me then that’s what they did. I liked that suggestions and it’s one I will try in the future.
Some Lessons Learned
In thinking about the information I’d received, both written and through our discussions I came away with a couple of lessons and reminders around projects and about teaching:
First of all, I was reminded of what a privilege it is to do what I do every day with such thoughtful young adults. How invigorating to come to work knowing that the learning isn’t a one-way street – that every day we show up as evolving people, learning and growing from each other, ending each day a different person than we started. I loved their feedback and their thoughtful suggestions, and I love that I’m learning along with them.
And yet -- I can’t please everyone. Although student voice is always important and should be valued, at some point, as a teacher with years of experience, I need to listen to my instincts and make the call. So if I think my students need more instruction, I should do so even if they are asking for something different. It’s a kind of dance, really. The push and pull of collaboration – my decisions affect them and their decisions affect me. The challenge is to remain open to suggestions while remembering that ultimately, I’m leading.
My wonderings were both verified and challenged when a few days later I received an email from Nadia with some of her thoughts around the project and the student response. After reflecting on her own experience and how proud she was of the students’ work she said “I do wonder if the students feel the same way as I do. I think our experiences as teachers are very different than theirs as students. I'm not sure if they see the holistic learning process like we do, because at times I think they get bogged down by the deadlines, requirements and stress of it all - but I do hope that they will look back and feel proud of the work that they did.”
In her survey, Nadia had also asked them “having completed the project, what 2 words describe how you feel about the entire project and process?”
Their responses show that they do feel proud of what they accomplished. And more than that even. Interestingly, post project, a new word rose to the top: fun. Many of the same words I had seen in previous exit cards were also included (proud, accomplished, relieved), but despite some of their criticisms, to see the word fun jump out like that was pretty gratifying.
Looking Back To Look Forward
As I looked back on some of the pre-project responses I got from students, I could see that many of the ways I wanted to be a more thoughtful teacher had been accomplished. I had wanted to provide leadership opportunities to students, and I had done so by enlisting the help of honors students. I had wanted to be fair and transparent in my assessment of the project,and I had done so in the critique they had done together and in their assessment of their own story. I had wanted to provide structures to help students with time management, and through our work together, Nicole and I had done so in the many supports we provided. I also saw the many areas where I could improve -- providing more models and changing up workshop groups and structures, to name a few.
As I thought about the ways I had wanted to grow as a collaborator and as a facilitator of collaborations, I could see that many of those goals had been accomplished as well. I understood the need to balance autonomy and collaboration; I understood the importance of shared workload and shared goals; I understood the importance of good communication, of being OK with discomfort, of the dangers of over-collaboration. I understood the importance of letting go. I couldn’t wait to get started on my next collaboration