The title of this post is the tagline for Twitter Math Camp (Yes, that’s a thing). What people love about this conference is that the presenters are typically classroom teachers, sharing their best practices. There is real power in hearing about something from a colleague who actually does it successfully.
During the conference, I had numerous conversations with people who talked about their disdain for those outside experts who come in with their theory and crazy ideas and tell us how to teach. There was always an uncomfortable pause when I would divulge that in my regular role, I’m one of those guys. As a consultant, I’m often that outside person coming in to help teachers grow. Fortunately, I’m rarely offended by exchanges like that, because I often said the same thing while I was teaching.
I’d like to make a case for what I do, because there’s power in consulting done effectively. I’ll reframe what I do to give some unsolicited formative feedback to TMC presenters, if I may.
As a consultant, I have time that classroom teachers don’t have to research. I read a lot about education (Books, journals, blogs) so I learn about the theory (and curriculum and standards). When I do workshops, I do my best to connect the theory (and curriculum and standards) to practice . It’s not always possible, and sometimes I deliberately leave it to teachers to make their own connections to their own practice in their own unique situations. Sometimes that drives them nuts. When I quote experts in my sessions, I tend to start with the bloggers who are actually using the strategies I share. Then I go sarcastically to the “real experts”, which are the people who are not teaching, but write books. Both kinds of experts are valuable.
I do demo lessons and lesson studies with teachers. I’m in classrooms a great deal. Sometimes I try things that fail. I’m open about that. Sometimes I try things that work. I’m open about that, too. I rarely ask teachers to try things I haven’t tried with success myself. I never ask teachers to try things that I’m skeptical about working.
I went to some really good sessions put on by classroom teachers at TMC. Andy Pethan showed a stats activity that totally engaged me. We had to draft an Ultimate Frisbee team based on a set of statistics that we could analyze how we saw fit. Then he used a simulator that he built to have our teams compete. I loved it. I want another crack at that simulator. Defence has to win championships, even in a sport I know nothing about.
Update: In the comments below, Andy provides this link to the code for his simulator. Now I can get my second crack at it! https://sites.google.com/a/byron.k12.mn.us/stats/projects/ultimate-frisbee-draft/simulator.
Keep your eye on Andy. This guy needed an engaging activity and wrote one, including coding his own Ultimate Frisbee simulator. That’s a cool skill set. He’s going to do neat stuff.
So finally, here’s my formative feedback for TMC presenters. The practices you shared were fantastic. Very few of you connected those practices to theory (and to curriculum and standards). What you did would have been even better if you took just a few minutes to tie it all together. In your presentations, get all consultanty. Just keep that part short.
What impressed me most was the age of some of the presenters. These are young teachers who are not afraid to share their craft with others. That bodes well for the future of education.
Featured Comments
Andy
I wish it were easier to have more flexible roles for education leaders — teach for part of the year, consult / develop software / write curriculum for the other part — so more of us became well rounded with theory, development, and daily teaching practice.
Dan
I’d like more theory also, but I don’t need someone to stand up and tell us that their lesson is an example of embodied cognition or to cite von Glasersfeld or whatever. What I need to know is where they’re coming from. What they look for in a good lesson. What makes a good lesson good for them. What would make their good lesson bad. That’s the kind of theory I need – a personal, theoretical framework.
Zero-Knowledge Proofs 
The link to Andy’s site http://failearlyandoften.blogspot.com/ is not working.
I had some of these feelings, too. And agree that we can complement. Now I feel part of my consultancy – or teacher ed – is to connect teachers with the MTBOS so they can get some of this empowerment directly.
And great to meet them IRL finally! Yourself, too.
Strange. What’s the difference between blogspot.com and blogspot.ca? It seems to be working on my end only for the .ca one. But when I went there this morning, the .com one worked. I think I have it set correctly now.
Well thanks for the shoutout John! It’s interesting thinking about all of the roles that bring value into education. Part-way through college, I took a year off to co-found a software startup building a collaboration tool for students. I saw similarly questioning faces from teachers who were not fully sure if and how to trust or listen to people who were passionate about improving education but not teachers. I wish it were easier to have more flexible roles for education leaders — teach for part of the year, consult / develop software / write curriculum for the other part — so more of us became well rounded with theory, development, and daily teaching practice.
And as a side note, if anyone wants the Ultimate simulator code, you can get it here: https://sites.google.com/a/byron.k12.mn.us/stats/projects/ultimate-frisbee-draft/simulator. Activity instructions for students (as of the last time I taught it in the spring) are here: https://sites.google.com/a/byron.k12.mn.us/stats4g/individuals.
I concur with my fellow fuddy-duddy consultants and researchers. (Though of course I would.)
My general complaint with the “My Favorite” genre of session is that the reason why a lesson is someone’s favorite is often left to the audience’s imagination. The same lesson can be beloved by ten different teachers for ten different reasons, not all of them good. (ie. “It kept them busy so I could read Reddit!”)
I’d like more theory also, but I don’t need someone to stand up and tell us that their lesson is an example of embodied cognition or to cite von Glasersfeld or whatever. What I need to know is where they’re coming from. What they look for in a good lesson. What makes a good lesson good for them. What would make their good lesson bad. That’s the kind of theory I need – a personal, theoretical framework.
Ed research is dry – fine. But that’s no excuse not to have a generalized opinion about what works for students. In a world without theory, every lesson works or doesn’t work independently of every other. There’s no connection between the ones that worked or didn’t. With a theory, we can see connections between the ones that worked. We can create new lessons faster. When a theory ceases to describe all the good stuff we’d like it to describe, we start to create a new theory.
Without theory, in the words of our colleague David Cox, we risk confusing “the accident of engagement with its essence.”
Okay THIS.
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I’d like more theory also, but I don’t need someone to stand up and tell us that their lesson is an example of embodied cognition or to cite von Glasersfeld or whatever. What I need to know is where they’re coming from. What they look for in a good lesson. What makes a good lesson good for them. What would make their good lesson bad. That’s the kind of theory I need – a personal, theoretical framework.
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THIS I’m down for. And we all have this personal, theoretical framework — whether we’ve bothered to articulate it or not. Because why you like/dislike that activity, and your thoughts about what about it worked, is tied up with what you believe about the classroom, and about student learning. And that forms your personal, theoretical framework. I’m just repeating you. But yes, this, I really like.
This ties in to something @jacehan and I were talking about yesterday… There are different *styles* and *approaches* that we gravitate towards because they fit something in us as teachers. That “something” is our personal, theoretical framework.
To what Raymond Johnson said below about a teacher saying “that won’t work with MY KIDS” — I would be annoyed with that too. But someone spouting Research Study X which concludes Y, and then saying “okay so this is what you should be doing” without understanding my school, my kids, and my personality… that I cringe at. And that is why I have this automatic eye-roll reflex.
This was like my school saying “okay, everyone do project based learning.” (There was no because after that sentence, which is even worse.) Luckily my school is flexible enough to hear our department’s plea to be allowed to do problem based learning, after we explained why.
We all make decisions about our teaching because of a zillion things. Our own past experiences teaching. Our own past teachers. Things we’ve been exposed to. Constraints by the school. Our kids. The culture of the department. Constraints by the parent body. Which is why I feel anyone doing *more* than saying “hey, this is an interesting thing, and look, here’s some data collected somewhere which shows it works sometimes, so maybe keep it in mind in case you think it can help you” is bleh.
As a sidenote, I like the bombardment of ideas we get here in this online community because I can use that to not only help me figure out what I resonates with me and what doesn’t (so it can tell you something about your personal, teaching theory), but also have a bunch of things I’m thinking about which then inspire me to change based on that exposure (so it can change your personal, teaching theory).
I’ve definitely done that a few times, when I look at it in this light.
Okay I’m done. Thanks Dan for that thought. I’m mulling it over. I really really love it.
I would actually be surprised at any researchers that discusses study X and pushes conclusion Y down people’s throats — all the while ignoring subjective contexts. In my experience, researchers are fairly careful in terms of including cultural, pedagogical, political…etc. contexts.
Perhaps you are referring to individuals who aren’t researchers though? Or perhaps you are thinking of people who interpret research as chapters of static theories instead of a dynamic collaborative conversation?
i agree that we could create a space for theory at tmc. my favorites doesn’t feel like the spot. the goals there seem two-fold: to provide a low barrier entry point for sharing ideas (for both old and new members of our community) and to expose us rapid-fire to a lot of talking points.
to be honest, i thought your “who are we” presentation would be touching on some of these topics. what DO we think works for students? how do we define our role as math teachers both in and out of the classroom? have we reached consensus on some larger pedagogical issues? where do we disagree? is it important for us to reach consensus as a community?
dan on twitter a minute ago: “What I’m after would’ve taken 2ish sentences more and would’ve made convos even better. Where are you coming from with this favorite? What are you after?”
i think i understand better what you are asking for now. and yes. that makes a great deal of sense.
Maybe instead of calling it “theory,” it would be better understood if presenters were just asked to briefly articulate some basic criteria they used to judge positively what they were presenting. To push it a bit further (and establish a criterion for the criteria), there could be an expectation that the best criteria are those that would help the audience judge the quality of other resources.
this makes tons of sense. +1
I like Raymond Johnson’s idea of articulating basic criteria during sessions. Might it be helpful to have a session (or maybe just an online discussion) where people discuss what these criteria are? As well as identify some individual definitions for “quality” or “useful.” Not so we can nail people on the wall forever, but to provide some mutual understanding and appreciation for our priorities and circumstances.
Everything Dan said, plus:
Having taught and sat through PD and conference presentations, I understand the annoyance and feeling of disconnectedness when a presenter speaks in generalizations and theory. Done badly, it feels like a presenter is being overly abstract in order to avoid real issues.
Now, on the research side, I’m annoyed when a teacher responds with something like, “Yeah, but that won’t work with MY KIDS. MY KIDS require this one way of teaching that you could never understand.” To me, that’s the other side of the same coin and, done badly, it feels like a teacher is being overly concrete in order to avoid real issues.
Thankfully, these two things tend to be extremes and there’s plenty of room in between for different kinds of expertise to partner together and make real progress.
I think about stuff like that all the time. If someone shows me a promising practice, I think it’s easier to connect that practice to my context, curriculum and standards than it is to connect only theory to a particular context. That’s why, as you suggest, a good presenter builds in both.
I too like Dan’s idea of a personal theoretical framework.
But at the same time, something inside me doesn’t like that. Such and such activity felt good to me as a teacher, but how do I know the kids really learned from it? I would like to hear more about how the teacher really dug down and did some class based research (or whatever it’s called) and really figured out that it worked and increased student understanding in some way.
But I guess that’s the holy grail?
“Such and such activity felt good to me as a teacher, but how do I know the kids really learned from it?”
This is huge.
Action research can provide reasons for why certain techniques have worked, but I always hesitate to accept “results” when those are compared to a measuring stick (test/exams) generated by traditional methods. “how do we measure critical thinking” is such a heavy issue.
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