EXCELLENCE & ETHICS

Updates from October, 2010

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  What are some ways to use a Power2Achieve Portable Compact-4-Excellence?

  RichParisi posted in Character Blog, Power2Achieve Community at 5:23 pm on October 21, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Compact-4-Excellence (3)

  During a recent visit to Allen Creek Elementary School in Pittsford, NY, Matt Davidson and I were able to witness many different ways that staff were utilizing Compacts-4-Excellence. It was exciting to observe a staff that so quickly picked up on this one Power2Achieve Tool and saw a myriad of ways they would use it to make a difference in their school community.

  The first way that Allen Creek decided to use a Compact was by developing a Faculty Compact at their first staff meeting to begin the new school year. When they had their first Instructional Learning Team (ILT) meeting of the year, they also discussed what they needed in their Compact, so that they could “Do Their Best Work and Be Their Best Selves”. The ILT felt that the Faculty Compact would work well for them at the current time, so they adopted the same Compact. However, both groups have said the Compacts are living documents that they will revise as needed.

  Another way that Allen Creek used the Compact-4-Excellence was to work together starting right at their opening day assembly program to develop a School Compact that would apply to school-wide expectations.  One of the key questions at the assembly was, “What does it mean to be your best self?” Another important challenge for all the students that day was, “We agree that we will…” Some of the students held up large visuals during discussion to help focus the students.

  All of the classroom teachers at Allen Creek involved their students in a process to develop a Compact-4-Excellence for their individual rooms.  Once the Compacts were finalized, many of the teachers posted a large copy in the classroom for all the students to sign. Some of the teachers shared the final Compact with all their parents and asked them and their child to sign and return the document.

  In addition to a general Classroom Compact-4-Excellence, some of the teachers also began to develop Compacts for the different instructional groups in their classroom. For example, Kathleen Roser, a third grade teacher, had each of her reading groups develop a Compact for when they were meeting as a group. Kathleen’s students also developed a Compact for Class Meetings and for her Math Class.

  It was impressive to see a school community that within the first month of the school year was using the Compact-4-Excellence on a school-wide basis, in individual classrooms in a variety of ways, and using this Tool to communicate and work with their parents. It was also exciting to hear staff members say that they felt the Compacts were contributing to the culture of excellence they desired in their school, so that everyone could “Do Our Best Work and Be Our Best Selves” at Allen Creek Elementary School.

  

   

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  Content Area Connections

  Kyle Baker posted in Character Blog, Power2Achieve Community at 4:54 pm on October 20, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: connection, content, math (2)

  Following up on the previous post by Matt, a few thoughts:

  One thing that we know is important when it comes to making Power2Achieve “real” for schools is having a vision of how P2A Tools can be incorporated into existing teaching & learning practices in order to strengthen the impact of the content area educational experience (in other words:  in the classroom).

  I think paragraph 5 from Matt’s previous post (“With the paradigm shift…”) describes exactly what we’re doing with Power2Achieve and matches up what I have seen and heard over the last few months while traveling all across the country to introduce P2A to educational stakeholders including students, teachers, administrators, policy makers, parents, business leaders, etc.

  I just posted the following on our Facebook page (facebook.com/excellenceandethics), click the Twitter link below to see the picture:

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  Click the link to check out a pic of an awesome content-area application of a Power2Achieve Tool by teacher Susan Reeve of Bishop Grimes High School in East Syracuse, NY. The entire faculty at Bishop Grimes received a Power2Achieve Toolkit training through a grant from the Central NY Community Foundation that was written by Rich Parisi, John Cataldo, and Lucia Cataldo of IEE in partnership with leaders from 3 schools in Syracuse! Great work everyone! Keep up the great work of creating the intentional culture of excellence & ethics needed for teaching & learning Susan!
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  http://twitter.com/#!/kbakerIEE/status/29020285777

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  (And yes, I just informally broke the news that IEE is now using Facebook and Twitter in order to continue our work of building an interactive world-wide network of educators.  A post on exactly how we’re using online communication channels to move toward that goal is coming soon!)

  

   
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  Eureka Moment in Ohio: Want To Improve Math? Build the Culture of Excellence and Ethics.

  Matt Davidson posted in Character Blog at 12:21 pm on October 19, 2010 | 2 Permalink | Reply
  

  Last week I participated in the Ohio Schools of Character Summit at the Fawcett Center on the campus of Ohio State University.  As part of my keynote address I was sharing how our evolving theory and tools for building the culture of excellence and ethics can move character education from “nice to necessary.” This is especially important for those educators who struggle to justify a focus on character education when they are faced with new and increasingly rigorous state and national standards, and other programmatic initiatives like Response to Intervention, 21^st C Skills, dropout prevention and post-secondary success.

  As part of the conference, the Ohio Partners in Character Education and the Better Business Bureau’s Center for Character Ethics recognized their EUREKA educator of the year.  The award annually recognizes an Ohio educator (preK-16) who embodies both the highest level of teaching competency and character development in their classroom pedagogy, management and relations with their students and peers. EUREKA teachers strive to help their students and themselves “be their best self and do their best work.”

  In our words, we would say, “these EUREKA educators intentionally build the culture of excellence and ethics NEEDED FOR learning.”  They understand that if you want to teach math, you must first reach students.  And the way to reach them is to intentionally create a culture of hard work, personal and collective responsibility; a culture where it’s safe to share your work; a culture where classmates treat each other with respect and care; a culture where you’re challenged to get outside your comfort zone;  a culture defined by perseverance, work ethic, positive attitude, and grit. 

  For the second year in a row, the EUREKA Educator of the year was a math educator (last year was Mark Schumacker, a middle school math teacher featured in the Spring, 2009 issue of Excellence & Ethics; this year’s recipient was Sue Thuma a 30-year veteran math educator from West Muskingum High School).  Permit us to pound our chest with pride for just a moment:   the growth and recognition of math educators as exemplars in helping students do their best work and be their best self is a HUGE leap forward for the field.  In the past character education was something that people said was “a better fit for English or Social Studies,” or “better experienced through service learning.” 

  With the paradigm shift we have been promoting, educators now see that building the culture of excellence and ethics is possible—and necessary—in every classroom. And that in this new way of thinking, getting good at math presents for students all the authentic challenges and engagement of a ropes course experience.  Only you don’t have to go to a ropes course to feel nervous, to be challenged, to need trust and teamwork from your classmates; you can create that intentionally in your own math class today.   We support learning by supporting learners.  No matter how naturally talented a student may be, or what the developmental level, educators must intentionally build the culture of excellence and ethics needed for learning.  We shape the culture for learning; the culture for learning shapes the character of students. It is in and through the educational experience is where the real action of character development takes place.

  In a breakout session on alignment of character education to state standards and pressing educational reform issues, this year’s EUREKA educator, Sue Thuma, said the following (I’m paraphrasing):  “I have no problem with the curricular changes that have been passed requiring all students to meet higher Math standards. But the only way we’re going to meet those standards s by concentrating even more on developing the moral and performance character needed to support student learning. EUREKA!

  

   
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  The 2010 Ray Award goes to Davidson and Lickona!

  RichParisi posted in IEE & Partners' News at 9:28 am on October 15, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  On October 23rd Matt Davidson, President of IEE, and Dr. Tom Lickona, Director of the Center for the 4th & 5th R’s at SUNY-Cortland, received the 2010 Robert D. Ray Pillar of Character Award from Character Counts In Iowa!

  Congratulations to Matt & Tom!

  http://www.excellenceandethics.com/news/101410_Davidson_Lickona.pdf

  

   
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  What happens after a P2A Toolkit Professional Development day?

  RichParisi posted in Power2Achieve Community at 4:52 pm on October 13, 2010 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Compact-4-Excellence (3), culture of excellence & ethics, elementary schools (4), Power2Achieve (8), Professional Development (4), Toolkit (2)

  Do you ever wonder what changes occur after a day of professional development? Matt Davidson and I had the privilege of doing a training day in the Pittsford School District at Allen Creek Elementary School on August 26^th and then returning there less than one month after school began. We walked away very impressed with how they had taken the tools from our Power2Acheive Toolkit training and were already utilizing them so effectively.

  One of the tools we trained on was the Portable Compact-4-Excellence. Allen Creek kicked off the year with a building-wide assembly which focused on developing a building-wide Compact-4-Excellence that would help them “To be their best self and do their best work”. They used one of the Four Keys, an “Other Study”, as a key part of this assembly, as Mr.Biondi, the Allen Creek School Principal, brought in his custodial staff as an “other study” and asked them questions. One of the questions was, “What does it mean to do your best work?” Another question was, “What does it mean to persevere?” Each classroom then developed a Compact-4-Excellence. Mike Biondi shared how he used an “Other Study” as part of this process by sharing classroom examples of Compacts that were being submitted. He followed this up by using another of the Four Keys, “Public Performance”, as he shared the Compacts over the morning announcements.

  During our visit, Matt and I were able to see the Compacts that were being used in each classroom and receive feedback from a few staff members about their use of a Compact.  For example, Kathleen Roser, a third grade teacher, shared several Compacts-4-Excellence that she had developed in her classroom. She had a Class Compact-4-Excellence, a Math Class Compact, a Class Meeting Compact, and each of her four reading groups had developed their own Compacts-4-Excellence. She was very pleased with how the Compacts were helping her to create an intentional culture of excellence and ethics in her classroom.  Dennise Zobel, another third grade teacher, shared her class compact. Her Compact-4-Excellence was typed up and was also sent home to parents and signed by parents and their child.

  In my 27 years as a school building administrator, I was part of attending and helping to lead many training days. Unfortunately, I often came away frustrated, as I would look back to see whether any real changes were made that were going to impact learning for students or change the adult culture. During this visit, I was very excited to see a concrete example of a school that really grabbed hold of our Power2Achieve Toolkit training and immediately began to use the tools to further enhance the many good things they have going on in their school community.

  

   
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  Want Enduring Impact? Find the Convenience-Fidelity Balance

  Matt Davidson posted in Character Blog at 2:19 pm on October 8, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  Every once in a while you come upon an idea that really helps you to make sense of things. For me it was the book, Trade-Off, which looks at how the balance of convenience and fidelity determines which products catch on and have staying power, and which products quickly fade away.  It was in the context of trying to understand the cost-effectiveness and enduring impact of our Power2Achieve programming that we began to consider these ideas of convenience and fidelity.   The graphic below is a visual we built to demonstrate the basic ideas.

  

  If you just think about programming that you’re familiar with in schools in terms of convenience and fidelity you begin to see what we’re going after:  Some approaches are convenient (easy to use, doesn’t take too much time, students like it—or at least don’t hate it), but they lack fidelity.  These are your “rock hard abs in just 15 minutes a day programs.”  They are what we crassly call “cheesy, contrived, junk.”  Then there are other programs that have great fidelity (strong theoretical and empirical basis and likely to have impact if they’re sustained), but they are impossible to sustain because they’re inconvenient to implement (they take too much time, require too much coaching and training, etc.).  Too often these are the programmatic solutions of academics and theoreticians who overbuild and rely too heavily on extensive training and coaching because the ideas are not refined to the simplicity beyond complexity.

  In fairness, in the past we’ve been guilty of proposing a convenience-fidelity proposition to schools that was unsustainable. Even schools that believed deeply in what we were proposing and the rigor of its vision and general recommendations, struggled to figure out what to do, how to do it, and ultimately struggled to sustain their efforts.  We got closer last year with our first generation of Power2 programming. The subsequent revisions to this year’s programming we believe are getting closer still to programming that is right in the crosshairs of convenience and fidelity.  Something that is theoretically and practically sound, engaging for students, user-friendly for teachers, and goes after the core issues that impact teaching and learning. 

  We’ll be sharing more examples of what this looks like and how we’re doing it. But reflect for a minute about the programming you have experienced using this convenience and fidelity notion as a lens.  I think it helps you understand when you’ve got something that isn’t right and when you’ve got something that is right; the real challenge, is what to do to fix something that IS NOT balancing convenience and fidelity.  For us it just took more than 15 years of blood, sweat, and tears. But with any luck, you can learn from our mistakes and more effeciently and effectively create something that has enduring impact.

  For a fuller description of how we are operationally defining the terms “convenience” and “fidelity” and how Power2Achieve is going after this balance of convenience and fidelity you can check out this link from under the programming tab on our website http://excellenceandethics.com/programs/P2A_Logic_Model_Description.pdf.