Tag Archives: engagement

Suspending Reality Can Cause Learning.

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When a teacher suspends reality for the duration of an instructional unit, children have few limits to their learning.  Suspension opens possibilities for each child’s thinking and doing that the conditions of instructional normalcy and “same old” can limit.  While not quite make-believe, a suspended reality induces creativity and alternative thinking, and invites exploration and risk taking.

Close your eyes and listen.

A classroom is Never-Never Land for children when a teacher learns how to suspend reality.  She doesn’t need Tinkerbell’s dust.  As mistress of her teaching domain, she says, “Close your eyes and listen” as she walks around the classroom placing things on the tables around which children were seated.  “We are now in a place long ago when people just like you were trying to understand how to count their possessions and the things they saw in their world.  They knew there was more than one of almost everything, but they did not have any ideas about how number them.  When you open your eyes, you will find two piles of things on your table.  Your first job is to find a way to tell me how you determined how many things are in each pile.  Your second job is to tell me how you can combine the objects in the two piles into one pile without recounting them.  And your third job is to tell me how you can remove some of the items in the larger pile so that you have two equal piles with some items left over.  When you have completed each job, you will explain your thinking and reasoning to me.”  She waits while silently counting to 30.  “Oh, there is a slip of paper next to your piles with these three jobs listed.  And I expect that each table may have differing yet very appropriate explanations for me.”  She waits while silently counting to 15.  “Now open your eyes and begin.”  If children have questions, she answers the children at their table directly and not the entire class.

Problem-based learning (PBL)

I first encountered suspended realities at teacher workshops in problem-based learning at the Illinois Math and Science Academy in the late 1990s.  Our workshop team was so enthused we pursued more training and then organized a district training in PBL so that all teachers, no matter their assignment could add PBL to their instructional toolbox.  We were into building instructional toolboxes.

Although our training was only to add a possible teaching tool for each teacher, we still experienced the usual change theory pathway of new programs.  Our goal was professional development and pleasingly we experienced many teachers who found value in a new teaching strategy.  Interestingly, our secondary teachers adopted PBL more quickly and thoroughly than our elementary teachers.  ELA, social studies, and science teachers, some veterans, and some early career teachers, modified selected units for PBL applications.  Each teacher embedded initial instruction, modeling, formative assessment, and instructional adjustment in their PBL units, but these came at different places and times in their unit’s progression compared to their usual unit designs.

Twenty-plus years later veterans of our PBL training still display aspects of suspended realities.  They have refined their applications, made the teaching tool more their own, and use it wisely to cause children to learn.

Student-centeredness causes learning.

The big Duh! of suspending reality lies in the acceptance of student-centered thinking and outcomes.  Teachers assure that key skill sets, content, and concepts are taught and learned during suspended reality.  Post-assessments indicate that student learning in PBL or suspended reality units is as strong if not stronger than in traditional directed instruction units of learning.  The real differential is in student engagement.  When children understand the power that “you explain it me” it allows them to create answers, solutions, and outcomes, opens their willingness to think beyond “usual” and past “this is how I usually act/think in class”, and their level of excitement and “I can do” accelerates. 

We can only smile proudly at the conclusion of a suspended lesson or unit and a child demonstrates learning of the academic content and skills, an ability to hold out an individualized product, explain a solution that both makes sense to her and to her teacher, and be independent of other children or groups of children.

Using tools to cause children to learn – isn’t this why we became teachers of children?

A “Bummer” Is When Children Are Spectators In Class

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How many “bummers” can a teacher have in a month of lessons and still be considered a quality teacher?  A “bummer” is a lesson that does not cause children to learn; it is just a “blah” class period of minimal engagement and no internalizing of knowledge, skills, or dispositions about what is learned.  Almost every student, whether a child in school today or an adult long graduated, knows what a “bummer” feels like because they happen.  When a lesson is a bummer, children are spectators in the classroom.

If you are or were an athlete, you know your “bummers”; a swing and a miss, a whiff, a missed block or tackle, a dropped ball, a missed shot, getting the ball taken away from you, getting pinned to the mat, knocking the bar of the high jump stand, or being DQ’d for a false start.  Most baseball players reach base safely every 2 or 3 times at bat.  That means 70-80% of the time they fail.  Interestingly, you can be a very successful player if your on base average is greater than 30% of your at bats.  Consider any sports statistics and there a lot of bummers.  Actually, there are a lot of bummers in life.

When a bummer happens, what is the “so what”?  In the micro-look, each bummer is a failed opportunity.  We easily say “the next time will be better”.  Even with a minimal lens, multiple bummers demonstrate a lack of skill or at least a lack of focus on being successful and we say “pay attention and get it right”.  With a larger lens, more problems are observable.  Children fall behind in what they need to learn.  If you follow the Packers this season, bummer games cause a lack of confidence in the team and fans begin to look for new players.

Bummers in school happen.  Statistically, we need to acknowledge they do.  Our interest is in limiting and eliminating bummers.  Using the micro-lens, each bummer lesson is a missed opportunity to cause children to learn and the minimal lens tells us that multiple bummers cause children to have gaps in their knowledge and skills that effect future learning. 

The WI DPI describes quality instruction (no bummers here) as follows:  “High quality instruction means curricula, teaching practices, and learning environments are standards-based, evidence-based, engaging, differentiated, culturally responsive, and data-driven”.

https://dpi.wi.gov/rti/resources/high-quality-instruction

In a school with board-approved curriculum, ongoing professional development, attention to student-centered education, and standardized accountability checks, we can unpack most of the DPI definition with an acknowledgement that veteran teachers are prepared to deliver successful lessons on a regular basis.  If this is the case, and I think it is, what causes bummer lessons?

We begin to “bum out” when we fail the set the learning “hook”.  We fail to spark children to learn by telling or showing them why what they are learning is important to them, how they can use what they learn now and in the future, and how successful learning today will cause future successful learning.

The DPI term “engagement” means more than getting children to do the work of learning.  For the non-DPI person, engagement is achieved when children “internalize what they are to learn, get excited about it because it is new and interesting or unique,  see self-value in what they will learn, and move beyond just doing the work of learning to seeing value in the learning”.  The most frequent cause of a bummer is that we do not hook children; we turn children into spectators in the classroom where the teacher is teaching.  Engaged children do not spectate.

A veteran teacher knows her stuff.  She has a developed a unit of instruction with scaffolded lessons she has taught before.   Perhaps she set the hook very well the first time she taught the lesson, but after teaching it multiple times she assumes children are being hooked because they were hooked in the past.  Across time, teachers and everyone else begins to take things for granted.  These assumptions cause us to skip over or minimize aspects of our teaching. 

Make no assumptions, especially about setting the hook for a lesson.  Each lesson taught this year is a new lesson for the children in class; they have not seen or experienced this learning before.  Eliminate a bummer in the making by accentuating their engagement.  Set the hook hard and deep so that no one is a spectator in their learning.

Limit or avoid bummer lessons and enjoy an escalation in student learning. 

Morale: A Wavering Variable That Can Be Improved

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Early in my working career, a venerable mentor told me, “If you think there is a problem, there is a problem until you either resolve it or decide, with new information, that it is not a problem. Your job now is to pull up your socks and get to work.”

“I think we may have a morale problem. If we do, we need to find out how bad it is and do something about it.” Check the echoes of conversations in any work place and you will hear these words spoken at different times and in a variety of voices. It is a rare work place that does not have a residual of these echoes describing low points of organizational morale. Typically, the evaluation of morale is a second- or third-hand observation of a workplace environment triggered by a sense of a generalized feeling of workplace malaise. Verbal and body language clues may indicate that an undetermined number of people suffer from a prolonged negativity about their work or work environment. An indirect observation of a generalized feeling tone emanating from an undetermined number of people can result in this declaration. “We have a morale problem,” is not based on science; it is a perception of a perception.

Workplace morale is not the same as workplace output. Given the nature of the work, making widgets or providing a service or working on the creative edge, workplaces have measures of output or productivity. Workplaces set objective quantitative and qualitative goals for their products and services and construct metrics for measuring quantity and quality of work product. Morale is an entirely different animal because it is subjective. Finding a metric for measuring morale is parallel to considering a metric that measures love. You know it when you feel it but any effort to quantify or qualify love immediately runs afoul of what love is. So it is with morale. You know the “flavor of morale” when you sense it, but you cannot objectify it. And, morale may or may not be associated with workplace output. As much as we try to draw a linkage, high or low workplace output is not directly correlated with high or low workplace morale.

Morale is an inconstant human emotion of wellbeing. A person’s morale is a variable that rises and falls given environmental conditions. To violate the immeasurability of morale, consider a yardstick. Often, we push a yardstick vertically into fresh fallen snow to measure the depth of snow. We obtain a measured fact; five inches of snow fell within the last 24 hours. As a morale meter, view the middle of a horizontal yardstick, the 18-inch mark, as our morale neutral point. Higher numbers up to 36 indicate degrees of positive morale and lower numbers from 17 to zero indicate degrees of negative morale. If we hang our morale stick on the wall and watch it over time, we would expect normalcy to be a wavering of morale somewhere between 12 and 24 inches or rocking back and forward on either side of the mid-point. Like a barometer reading atmospheric pressures, morale changes, adjusts, re-centers and changes again and gives us a different measurement reading as wellbeing pressures are perceived. That is, if we could measure morale.

“We have a morale problem and need to do something about it,” leads to a question. What are the variables that affect workplace morale. To some extent, the variables may be as numerous as the number of employees, as each person may exude a differing degree of morale wellbeing. And, there are variables of morale wellbeing outside the organization’s control that enter the workplace. However, there are three solid concepts that affect morale, that are within an organizational reach, and that bear examination. These are engagement, respect and appreciation. These variables, unlike morale in general, can be quantified, qualified and measured. When they are on the positive end of the proverbial yardstick, each or all of these variables are associated with high morale. When each or all of these are not the negative end of the yardstick, they clearly are associated with low morale.

Daniel Pink writes in Drive (2009) that worker motivation is enhanced by three concepts of engagement. These are autonomy, mastery and purpose. He shows that workers who are positively motivated have a positive sense of well-being. Autonomy is the level of worker “self-determinism” in the work being done. Whereas, a traditional supervision of work leans toward worker conformity to routine processes, workers are better motivated when they participate in determining the schemes of their work effort. Additionally, workers are more motivated when they are provided continual training and education that leads them to be more skillful in their work. And, motivation increases when workers internalize the importance of their work. “We can affect worker autonomy.”

Engagement, whether as Pink describes it, or simply as the level of worker personal connection to the work being done, is an essential part of workplace morale. A response to “… we need to do something about it” can begin with an understanding of the degree to which workers exhibiting low morale are engaged and connected to their work. If barriers to engagement have been purposefully constructed or have arisen as unforeseen outcomes, begin to diminish those barriers. We can encourage engagement by listening to employees. Listening to their comments about their work, their complaints and their suggestions. Listening to how they “would like to see their work” managed. Listening to them as employees and as “people” we work with on a daily basis. Connecting engaged employees may mean accepting and adopting their recommendations. Real connections are made when employee contributions to work improvement is recognized and publicized. And, listening as a step toward engagement and connection is virtually a cost-free step toward moral improvement. On our morale yardstick, higher and positive morale measures are associated with the degree of worker engagement. “We can affect engagement.” “We can affect connections.”

Secondly, examine the degree of mutual respect exhibited by workers and supervisors toward each other. As Aretha Franklin sang of it in Otis Redding’s song, “Respect” means

“…R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Find out what it means to me

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Take care, TCB…”

Mutuality of respect is taking care of the people-side of business. The literature about organizational respect describes respect as a conditional and earned value and as an unconditional and granted value. Any discussion will teeter between respect being conditional or unconditional, but regardless of a discussion’s conclusion, values of mutually respectful behavior are essential for positive measurements of morale. Respect in the workplace is like the concept of connections, but it goes deeper into the worker well-being.

Environments of respect exhibit an open and mutual recognition of value. Openness is a public recognition; it is a declaration of how the work efforts of employees contributes to organizational success. Mutuality is the act of supervisors openly valuing workers and workers openly valuing supervisors. Too often, measurements of respect are unidirectional; they measure the degree to which workers perceive they are respected by supervisors. Respect in the workplace also must measure the degree to which supervisors perceive they are respected by workers. In truth, if there is no mutuality, there is no respect.

The concept of respect may be more easily observed in its absence. Disrespect often shows as interpersonal personal detachment and animosity verging on hostility. The flavor or the much characterized “water cooler” talk of a workplace indicates the presence of disrespect. Respect is openly portrayed while disrespect is a closed and oppositional behavior that works against both supervisors and workers.

On our morale yardstick, higher and positive morale measures are associated with the degree of mutual respect. “We can affect mutual respect.”

Lastly, appreciation is a necessary variable for positive workplace morale. Appreciation, or consideration, is the quid pro quo that exists between the organization and each working employee and is displayed in wages and salary and benefit programs. Pink writes that financial compensation is not an enduring motivator. A paycheck and employment benefits only meet the immediate and superficial elements of personal motivation, Pink says. However, time and experience have proved that if financial appreciation is not present on the first day of a person’s employment, that lack of appreciation will have a continuing negative affect of the employee’s morale. Appreciation matters.

Also, if appreciation and consideration are drastically altered for reasons unassociated with workplace effort, they can have a horrific effect upon worker morale. Political and economic policies have a direct impact upon appreciation and consideration. As a case in point, when Act 10 was passed in 2011, it initiated a multi-year effect upon the workplace morale of public employees in Wisconsin. State law effectively reduced worker wages and salaries and transferred the costs of specific benefits from the employer to the employee. Secondly, the Act legally ended the employees’ right to bargain for their employment’s compensation. In addition, the legislator’s annual funding of public education was slashed resulting in the loss of employment and educational programming. Subsequent state policy assured that these changes were continued each of the past six years. A result of this political manipulation is that a politically constrained level of worker appreciation has become the status quo and a constant damper upon workplace morale

Additionally, the political back story associated with Act 10 was that unionism in public employment was a direct cause of high state and local taxes. The back story went further in describing public employees as enjoying employment benefits that were uncommon for non-union workers and that the costs of these benefits were borne by all taxpayers in Wisconsin. The result was not just a financial restructuring of public employment; it also was a redefining of the way in which private employers and employees looked at public employees. Morale was sacrificed for political gain. Appreciation and consideration do matter. “We can affect appreciation and consideration.”

My mentor gave me two additional reminders about problem-solving. “Once you get your socks pulled up and get active in solving a problem, it is important to keep your socks up. Problem-solving opens may opportunities for time, people and circumstances to tug your socks down to your ankles and no one works well stumbling on his socks.” And, “Once you are comfortable with your socks pulled up, be ready to for the next problem. It awaits you.”