Using Twitter at School

Our school uses Twitter a lot. Here are some examples of how we use it....

-Our school hashtag is #HHSiBucs. Staff and students "tag" their tweets whenever the news is school-related. (Update: At the time of writing this post, the hashtag was #HHSiBucs. Since then, it has changed to #HooverPride)

-Holly Sutherland (another administrator) and I use it when we visit classrooms to share what students and teachers are doing

-When a student receives a Praise Referral, I take his/her picture and tweet the accomplishments

-At our school-wide Curriculum Night, we showed the #HHSiBucs twitter stream on a huge screen in the cafeteria during the meetings. Parents, students, and staff tweeted during the night

-We take pictures at assemblies, athletic events, meetings, etc. and share via Twitter

-Holly shares a motivational quote each school day

-We share links to our school's Engaged Learning Initiative blog (Update: Blog is no longer active)

-The librarians tweet library happenings and events

-Each Monday night, Holly and I host #ALedchat from 9-10pm CST where we connect with educators from Alabama and all over the country

-Teachers share what their students are doing in class via twitter

Here's what one of our teachers did in his English class...he had music playing while the students entered class. He then asked the students to tweet how the music related to the selection they had recently been reading. The tweets led the conversation and instruction for the class that day.

Another teacher created class hashtags. She held a "Twitter Chat" during class by posting questions and having the students to respond to her and each other.

Not that familiar with Twitter hashtags? Here's a great article called The Complete Guide to Twitter Hashtags in Education. 

What other ideas do you have for using Twitter at school?

12: The Elements of Great Managing

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12: The Elements of Great Managing

Have you read this book? It's a book based on years of Gallup research, including 10 million employee and manager interviews spanning 114 countries and conducted in 41 languages. The research shows that there are 12 basic needs that employees need to have fulfilled at work for optimal engagement.

While it is a book for leaders about employee engagement, I think it also provides opportunities for leaders and employees to self-reflect. When you read the 12 elements below, think of each statement as a true/false question. 

If the answer to any of the questions is false, how do you go about turning it into a True statement?

You can read more about the book and each element here.

When I read this list, I think about the teachers at our school and try to determine which of these elements I can influence and support. I hope that I have done a good job with supporting the teachers who would answer them as if they were a list of True/False questions. 

I'm interested to hear your thoughts about the 12 Elements. Does your organization use this list as a gauge for employee engagement? Please leave a comment on your most or least favorite.

Who's really in charge in the classroom?

I seem to always pull for the underdog. I love movies such as Hoosiers, Rocky, and Remember the Titans. The story of Helen Keller moves me. I pull for the contestants on shows like American Idol and America's Got Talent who have the rags-to-riches stories.

In recent news, the story of Florida Gulf Coast University is a cinderella story in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. They beat Georgetown (No. 2 seed) Friday night, then defeated San Diego State last night, making them the first No. 15 seed to ever win two games in the tournament and make it to the Sweet 16.

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Today I want to share an excerpt from an article by Martin Haberman I'm reading, titled The Pedagogy of Poverty Versus Good Teaching. (The bolded phrases are by me.) Until recently, I had never heard of Martin Haberman. I think we both shared a passion for the underdog, the overlooked, the unexpected victor. We also believe in (and the research proves the importance of) the power of a teacher.

From Mr. Haberman....

For any analysis of pedagogical reform to have meaning in urban schools, it is necessary to understand something of the dynamics of the teacher/student interactions in those schools. The authoritarian and directive nature of the pedagogy of poverty is somewhat deceptive about who is really in charge. Teachers seem to be in charge, in that they direct students to work on particular tasks, allot time, dispense materials, and choose the means of evaluation to be used. It is assumed by many that having control over such factors makes teachers "decision makers" who somehow shape the behavior of their students.

But below this facade of control is another, more powerful level on which students actually control, manage, and shape the behavior of their teachers. Students reward teachers by complying. They punish by resisting. In this way students mislead teachers into believing that some things "work" while other things do not. By this dynamic, urban children and youth effectively negate the values promoted in their teachers' teacher education and undermine the nonauthoritarian predispositions that led their teachers to enter the field. And yet, most teachers are not particularly sensitive to being manipulated by students. They believe they are in control and are responding to "student needs," when, in fact, they are more like hostages responding to students' overt or tacit threats of noncompliance and, ultimately, disruption.

It cannot be emphasized enough that, in the real world, urban teachers are never defined as incompetent because their "deprived," disadvantaged," "abused," "low-income" students are not learning. Instead, urban teachers are castigated because they cannot elicit compliance. Once schools made teacher competence synonymous with student control, it was inevitable that students would sense who was really in charge.

The students' stake in maintaining the pedagogy of poverty is of the strongest possible kind: it absolves them of responsibility for learning and puts the burden on the teachers, who must be accountable for making them learn. In their own unknowing but crafty way, students do not want to trade a system in which they can make their teachers ineffective for one in which they would themselves become accountable and responsible for what they learn. It would be risky for students to swap a "try and make me" system for one that says, "Let's see how well and how much you really can do".

Recognizing the formidable difficulty of institutionalizing other forms of pedagogy, it is still worthwhile to define and describe such alternative forms. The few urban schools that serve as models of student learning have teachers who maintain control by establishing trust and involving their students in meaningful activities rather than by imposing some neat system of classroom discipline. For genuinely effective urban teachers, discipline and control are primarily a consequence of their teaching and not a prerequisite condition of learning. Control, internal or imposed, is a continuous fact of life in urban classrooms - but, for these teachers, it is completely interrelated with the learning activity at hand.

Each of us will get a different message from this excerpt. I would love for you to leave a comment with your thoughts, questions, and take-aways.

Praise Referrals

When I meet a parent of a freshmen, they often say, "My daughter/son is ________. I hope he/she never has to come to your office!" or "I guess if you don't know him/her, that's a good thing!"

In my job as the disciplinarian for the freshmen class, most of the students I see in my office are there for negative reasons. Often, my first personal encounter with a student is because he or she has violated the code of conduct... misbehaving in class, skipping class, cheating, out of dress code, etc. 

Fortunately for me and the students, I'm not a person who enjoys negativity. I WANT to know the students... the ones who are behaving and having consistently successful days as well as those who aren't. I find ways to meet students outside my office by talking to them in the hallways, cafeteria, classrooms, etc. 

After attending a session by Bloomfield High School at the annual conference for National Association of Secondary School Principals a few weeks ago, I found a mechanism by which we (grade-level principals) could see students in our office for a positive reason: Praise Referrals. At Bloomfield HS, teachers can "write up" students for positive reasons. I immediately knew that I wanted a copy of their form so that I could bring it back to our school. I emailed one of the presenters while I was in the session and requested a copy. Once I returned to school the next Monday, he had emailed me a copy of the form. Bingo!

While we do recognize Students of the Month (2 per grade level per month), Finley Character Recognition Award winners (7 per grade level), and classroom award winners (recognized at a breakfast in the spring), I still felt like at a school of nearly 2700 students we needed a way to recognize more students for the positive things they do. Now, staff members can recognize students positively throughout the year. When staff members send us grade-level principals a praise referral, we call the student to our office, shower them with praise, and make a positive phone call home. We collect the praise referrals and put them in a box, and at the end of each month we will have a drawing for prizes such as food coupons, iTunes gift cards, etc. and announce those winners over the intercom. 

In giving praise to students, I'm reminded to praise the process rather than the person. In a recent study, it was found that children who received more "process praise" felt as thought they could improve their intelligence, and they approached challenging tasks with a more positive attitude. I have a sign in my office that states, "Smart is not something you are. Smart is something you get by working hard."  

It's been fun to see the students faces as they come to my office then how their faces change when I tell them why they're there and then when I tell them I'm going to call their parents. I think they all float out of my office when they return to class. :) 

Here's what one student posted on Twitter:

How does your school recognize students for positive reasons?