#blog: In This Evolution of Learning, Focusing on Student Strengths is #SelfCare
by Dr. Rebecca Itow
Cross post from the NGLC blog.
Teachers’ daily work to learn from students and reshape our understanding of what learning looks like and what teaching feels like is a form of self-care.
Mom arrived early, so the two of us waited together as her student finished an exam. It was the end of a long day and this parent—who teaches high school English by day and university writing by night—shared that she was exhausted. I know this mom as a colleague—we had worked together a decade earlier to develop a then-new model for asynchronous online collaboration, and her contributions have been central in several academic publications. She is one of the best teachers.
So when I asked how her year was going and she responded with a defeated reply, I was concerned. She shared what was weighing on her mind, body, and heart and diminishing her identity as a teacher: a student had submitted an AI-generated paper. The weight of the offense was sitting hard on her chest, she was taking it personally. More than the cheating, she was dismayed that the student did not seem to have the desire—or, more devastatingly, she worried that perhaps she had failed to teach the skill—to "sit with his ideas." She wondered whether as a society we are losing the skill of generating our own ideas, sitting with a blank page, and allowing our sparks of insight to bubble up and spill out onto the page.
I made some feeble attempts to help. Could she have the student critique the AI-generated content or use ChatGPT to generate ideas?* But that wasn’t the point. From her vantage point, this child, who could not or would not execute a fundamental skill that English teachers work to cultivate, was a huge banner showcasing her failure as a teacher.
I have been thinking about this moment for weeks. What is happening? I spend my days working with teachers to develop innovative approaches to learning, and yet this story is not unique. Every day, teachers share that they feel defeated and more-than-stressed, that the students can’t, the students won’t. And I don’t buy the narrative that teachers are negative or power hungry or any of that nonsense.
I wonder if we are experiencing a kind of evolution in learning. Maybe rather than try to outrun our technology, convince students to learn and act as we did or cleverly curb technology-assisted behaviors (as I tried to do above), perhaps our work and our focus should be to identify the new ways and types of thinking our technology affords us. Maybe we should learn from our students how to think and learn and act in innovative ways instead of making them conform to us.
Back in 1995, Edwin Hutchins, a professor emeritus in cognitive ethnography, distributed and embodied cognition, human-computer interaction, and multimodal interaction at UC San Diego, wrote about the way a pilot uses cockpit tools to relieve cognitive load so they can focus on the more complex maneuvers of flying a plane. We use calculators to perform simpler mathematics, which opens opportunities for more nuanced mathematical thinking. And the worriers were right—we may not practice the underlying logic to solve complex problems the way we did with a slide rule, but we can think differently and solve more complex problems in nuanced ways. We can see the world through new lenses because we have offloaded those cognitive tasks to our tools.
Perhaps our work is becoming less about teaching content and more about teaching the skills necessary for interacting in a networked world.
Our profession has trained us to train our students to think and learn as we did, which positions us to fail because we are looking for evidence of learning that is bound by traditional brick-and-mortar conceptions of knowing and learning. But the brick-and-mortar setting is really not where our students are primarily learning today. They are online, engaging in virtual information sharing for formal (i.e., school) and informal (i.e., social) purposes. They use amazingly powerful tools to connect to the world, build relationships, and shape their understandings.
So let’s position ourselves for success. Rather than look for how to “fix” students’ behaviors around the newest (and honestly, pretty cool) technology, let’s find out why they are using those tools in that way in our classes. Is that how they use those tools in all settings? My Mom says that if we operate under the assumption that no child wants to be bad, we can uncover the why behind their behaviors.
Maybe this egregious act of using ChatGPT to write an essay isn’t about us educators at all; maybe that student finds the blank page so intimidating and they really wanted to submit something so they didn’t feel stupid in front of their peers and their teachers. Maybe they think that what the AI wrote is actually pretty great and have opinions about it. By asking the student why instead of punishing the what, can we learn together and develop new ways of thinking? Perhaps our work is becoming less about teaching content and more about teaching the skills necessary for interacting in a networked world. We cannot predict the ways our students will walk through the world, but we do know that the future will be networked and require students to be nimble as they engage in an interconnected world. Professors Michael Xenos (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Kirsten Foot (iSchool at University of Washington) predicted in 2008 that students will be co-constructors of knowledge, and we must help them prepare to move forward rather than look behind.
It is well documented that educators’ identities are wrapped up in our work. We define ourselves and our self-worth through the success of our students. But our standards and structures are centered on potentially outdated notions of what learning looks like of what teaching feels like. This not only sets teachers up for failure—it is the opposite of self-care.
As I wrote in 2020, it is time to reconceptualize what learning looks like and what teaching feels like.
We do actually know what we are doing. And rather than look for the deficits in our students around how they are not meeting the (outdated) standards—the ways in which they cannot or will not—we can look for their strengths. We don't need to criticize ourselves for what students cannot or will not do. Our daily work to learn from our students and reshape our understandings about what learning looks like and what teaching feels like is the #SelfCareExample. Looking for and learning from students’ strengths is a way to practice self-care. We must each engage in this practice and share it with others. Walk down the hall and share your stories with a colleague. Tell them that they are not alone in this struggle. Be the example for others and ask them to do the same for you. You are so capable. You are powerful. Let’s give ourselves the gift of focusing on our students’ strengths so that we can celebrate their good work and their innovative ways of learning, knowing, and thinking.
*I used Google’s AI, Bard, to help me generate a title for this blog post. I first asked Bard to help me create a title about experiencing an evolution of learning, and it gave me some good ideas. Then I refined my prompt by asking to make sure “evolution of learning” was in the title, and then again to mention teaching identities. While the title you see here is uniquely mine, I used Bard to spark my thinking. I was stuck and knew what I wanted to capture, but couldn’t quite get there. The way I used Bard to get “unstuck” is a good example of how I used this tool to help me articulate the messy thoughts in my brain, and lower my stress level by using Bard’s inspiration to create a title that caught your attention!
References
Hutchins, E. (1995). How a cockpit remembers its speeds. Cognitive science, 19(3), 265-288.
Itow, R. C. (2020). Fostering valuable learning experiences by transforming current teaching practices: practical pedagogical approaches from online practitioners. Information and Learning Sciences, 121(5/6), 443-452.
Xenos, M., & Foot, K. (2008). Not your father’s Internet: The generation gap in online politics. Civic life online: Learning how digital media can engage youth, 51-70.
About the Author
Dr. Rebecca C. Itow (she/her) is principal of IU High School Online. She earned her Ph.D. in learning sciences from Indiana University and was a public high school teacher. Driven to facilitate safe spaces for learners to navigate their academic journeys in valuable and valued ways, Rebecca researches, designs, and implements responsive online pedagogical practices in digital learning environments. Her work guides current university and community partnerships that innovate online teaching, learning, and design.
More content from Dr. Rebecca Itow
#blog: “Keep a Swing in Your Step and a Song in Your Heart": Music as Self Care
by Dr. Rebecca Itow
Cross post from the NGLC blog.
Educators know they need #SelfCare, but how can they do that in a profession that inherently encourages putting others first? These examples make self-care concrete and implementable.
We're all a little tired of hearing that we need to practice #SelfCare. We're told as educators to take time for ourselves, to take time off, to say no. Well let's face it, the reality is we are in a profession where we care for growing humans through their learning. We cultivate relationships and use our experiences and our presence to make those relational connections with students and families stronger. Our positions as educators inherently encourage us to put others before ourselves.
And while we are all trying to give ourselves a little #SelfCare, our efforts are met with a conflicting narrative in local news and within communities that educational institutions are subversive, and that the educators within them are bad actors, teaching too much of this but not enough of that, that we are not serving the children in our care well (e.g., Contorno, 2023).
We educators really do need to practice filling our cups so we may fill the cups of others (well4edu.org), but doing so is challenging amid the social and political conflicting narratives that add even more layers of stress to our teaching efforts. Sometimes it can feel like we don’t have the time and tools to practice #SelfCare as we support the children in our communities, strive to meet their individual needs, and reconceptualize what teaching feels like and learning looks like, as I’ve written about before in an article for the Indiana Association for School Principals.
Perhaps what we need is not just a promotion of #SelfCare, but a useful and useable #SelfCareExample (or five) that can make this notion of #SelfCare concrete and implementable.
I'm still no good at taking time off. But I've gotten pretty great at giving myself moments to take time away, even if I'm sitting at my desk.
A Lifetime of Strategies
I have Tourette Syndrome, OCD, and ADHD. In the very beginning when the source of my behaviors was a mystery, my wise parents helped me build strategies for controlling impulses, staying focused, and using what could be a debilitating set of challenges as stepping stones rather than roadblocks.
I have carried those strategies into my adult life. They have evolved as I have grown.
When I stepped into my first classroom as a teacher, I quickly realized that all of the beautiful energy, excitement, and behaviors that are the manifestation of students’ learning and growth—while inspiring—made it challenging for me to filter sensory input, control my tics, and focus on the task of teaching. I had to figure out a way to make my body and my mind be still so that I could do the good work of facilitating a welcoming, engaging, and wonderfully challenging learning environment.
Over time, I developed a large set of self-care strategies that simultaneously helped me be a successful teacher while improving the learning environment for my students. These strategies continue to evolve, and I use them daily. I’d like to share one #SelfCareExample in this blog post and more examples in future posts. Rather than try to mimic what I do, I encourage you to use my examples as inspiration to develop your own set of self-care strategies. What works for one person won't work for someone else, so make these your own.
I offer here examples of how I build space within my professional routines, throughout my day, to breathe. I'm still no good at taking time off. But I've gotten pretty great at giving myself moments to take time away, even if I'm sitting at my desk.
Music shifts my mood and helps me get into the task I'm doing.
#SelfCareExample: Use Music to Transition, Breathe, Reset
When I was a kid, I used to sign everything with "Keep a swing in your step and a song in your heart!" I wrote it on everything. Cards, yearbooks, as a doodle in my notebook … this phrase represented my basic attitude then and remains the lens I use as I walk in the world. There is a constant soundtrack accompanying my daily activities; I have different genres of music—and some specific songs—that I call up when I am excited, nervous, studying, focusing, or cleaning my house. Music shifts my mood and helps me get into the task I'm doing.
And I'm not alone. A body of research has demonstrated that music and strategic music interventions are effective in reducing stress and can be used to impact mood and as a coping strategy.
Strategically Connecting Personal Passion with Professional Practice
Being an educator is kind of like playing mental ping pong all day, everyday, and I found it challenging to move from one class period to the next, to “switch my brain” during a seven-minute passing period. As the day went on, the chaos would continue to build, my stress level would increase, and I would have more and more difficulty focusing.
I developed a crucial self-care strategy to address this challenge: to use music before, during, and between classes to help me transition from class to class. I used music to help me leave the stress of last period behind so that I could be fully present for my next group of students. And the same strategy that helped me transition smoothly throughout my day helped my students do the same, while enriching their learning experience.
I am no longer in a classroom, but I use this same strategy throughout my day as a school principal. For instance, on the drive to work I put on some music that will prepare me for the day ahead: I choose one set of songs when I need to be pumped up for a new project and other songs to help me focus and clear my head to face a challenge. And I don’t work hard at this…I really just flip through my “liked” songs until I find the ones that will move me today. (The trick to establishing and actually using a self-care strategy is to make it doable!)
The music helped us all be present and engage in the immediate learning task more fully.
When I entered my classroom—now my office—I played music that set the tone for the lesson, matched the theme, or was a musical version of whatever we were studying (my favorite). Here is an example of what this looked like:
When my students were researching the history and current relevance of superheroes and supervillains in society, music selections included the Superman theme song, Batman, and the obligatory Star Wars soundtrack. As I prepared for my day, I let my mind think about the character development discussion I would lead while listening to the Imperial March. Students walked in the door hearing Superman soar above the clouds. We all listened as the students copied the agenda on the board, and I took attendance and assessed the wellbeing of the room.
The music helped all of us leave behind the morning ride to school, that thing that happened during the passing period, the parent phone call I needed to make at lunch, that test next period. The music helped us all be present and engage in the immediate learning task more fully.
In my role as principal, I keep my music in my ears more than on an external speaker, but I still keep my soundtrack going. I skip the songs that don’t move me in the moment, and I don’t limit myself to a single genre or artist. When I need inspiration, I choose a song I’ve had on repeat for a bit and start a Spotify radio station with it.
I am bringing my team back to work in person more frequently, and will curate my playlists to inspire collaboration, positivity, and kindness to oneself and each other. As we engage in different projects, the music will shift. My staff’s contributions to the office playlists will enrich the work environment just as learners’ contributions help an educational environment blossom.
I invite you to adapt this #SelfCareExample into a #SelfCareStrategy that meets your individual needs today. It will grow, it will shift, it will evolve. As in all learning, building up this strategy will take thought and time and practice and iteration. Be open to ideas. And consider this: If the #SelfCareStrategy helps you cope, destress, or transition from one task to the next, it will likely do the same for your learning community. Multiple benefits, one strategy! That’s my kind of #SelfCare!
About the Author
Dr. Rebecca C. Itow (she/her) is principal of IU High School Online. She earned her Ph.D. in learning sciences from Indiana University and was a public high school teacher. Driven to facilitate safe spaces for learners to navigate their academic journeys in valuable and valued ways, Rebecca researches, designs, and implements responsive online pedagogical practices in digital learning environments. Her work guides current university and community partnerships that innovate online teaching, learning, and design.
#blog: A Single Slice of the Pie: Relieving Educator Overwhelm by Consolidating Roles and Expanding Opportunities for Teacher Leadership
Special thanks to Next Generation Learning Challenges for allowing us to cross-post this blog post :-)
by Dr. Kathryn Kennedy and Dr. Rebecca Itow
Teacher exhaustion is not new but it is now pervasive. Greater autonomy and consolidating roles can support educator wellness and strengthen school culture.
Educator stories of overwhelm and exhaustion are continuing to create buzz across education social media circles. The same school-level and systemic factors from the 1990s and 2000s hold true today as major sources of stress, including but not limited to high-stakes testing, excessive workload, large class sizes, inadequate resources, student behavioral challenges, initiative fatigue, and lack of support. One of the most cited contributing factors to educator attrition is educators wearing too many hats (Viac & Fraser, 2020).
Many educators have asked their schools to consider taking tasks off their plates. Because of the many requirements that schools have to meet at the district and state levels, we know that this is often not possible.
What is possible for schools, however, is the opportunity to consolidate educator roles. Doing this not only helps alleviate the pressure that educators feel when trying to juggle many roles, but it also provides teachers an opportunity to step into teacher leadership. Take a moment to think about the following examples:
A school asks an educator to shift to an SEL coordinator position that works collaboratively with teachers to support students.
An educator really enjoys writing lessons and aligning them with standards, and they feel empowered to take on a role where that is their sole job, working collaboratively with teachers to support them across various classrooms.
An educator loves working with students to set academic goals and coaching and networking them to achieve those goals, so they take on a coaching position that supports all or a portion of students in the school. Or perhaps they take on a position coordinating and supporting a group of coaches.
An educator takes on a coordinator role of a project-based learning approach for students that additionally frees up teachers to serve as mentors for certain components of student projects.
We hear often of excellent teachers who we wish could influence more than the students in their building. Another prevalent narrative is of teachers’ wish to revise or update their skills and courses, which they would happily do if they had the time and opportunity. The following example demonstrates how local and state support is helping one talented business teacher reach more students by giving her the space to learn and grow. With triangulated support this teacher is currently (a) leveraging her brick-and mortar teaching experience to (b) design useful and usable learning opportunities in virtual courses. As she does so, this teacher is (c) increasing access to both the course content and her talent, (d) building both her individual and the school’s capacity to support learners in virtual environments, and most importantly (e) recognizing that her past experience is valuable. By building a dynamic and relevant virtual course, this educator is simultaneously honing her craft while teaching more students in increasingly relevant ways.
A talented brick-and-mortar business teacher took on the brave challenge of working with a digital pedagogist to design a virtual course. She is using her years in the classroom to re-envision what learning and teaching look and feel like for the purpose of developing up-to-date, useful, and usable virtual curriculum so that more students have access to the content she teaches.
However, the teacher’s confidence to realize this goal was, at times, unsteady. Significant institutional constraints and already impacted professional routines were compounding in unsustainable ways. As a veteran teacher of a course that had recently been moved one whole grade level down, she found herself designing assignments that met the standards but were somewhat lacking in relevance given the developmental difference between the age of her former students and the age of her current ones. This combined with the challenges of learning to teach in a virtual environment and the rest of her professional responsibilities was making it difficult to focus on the challenge she undertook. In fact, the overwhelm was making the whole job difficult.
When asked how she might re-envision her role to help her focus on design and generally escape the overwhelm, the teacher envisioned letting go of enough other responsibilities to spend time updating her courses; her courses would facilitate relevant learning in both brick-and-mortar and virtual learning environments. She would consolidate her role to center around curriculum design. To try on this role consolidation, the teacher and the pedagogist spent 45 minutes brainstorming strategies the teacher could use to engage students in meaningful learning of useful and usable concepts in both learning environments.
Throughout the working session, this teacher let her creativity flow. She developed curricular approaches that (a) meet academic standards, (b) address students’ needs, (c) draw on learner’s expertise, and (d) could be made appropriate for both face-to-face and virtual settings. Her tone turned joyful as she innovated. She began designing new materials and teaching strategies. It became apparent that, if allowed to do what she loves and is trained to do—that is, if she could re-envision her role to be one that gave her enough space to creatively design —both she and her students would experience learning that is useful and usable, valuable to those learners, and valued by others. The experience is helping this teacher—and the school—build the capacity to consolidate her role, which in turn is beginning to relieve the overwhelm and reinvigorate her excitement for teaching.
And because this teacher has the local and state support to continue working and learning in this way, she is able to focus her energy on something she is passionate about (relevant curriculum design) while increasing her school’s (and the state’s) capacity to ensure students’ access to it.
This option of role consolidation also illustrates the power of educator autonomy: opening up space for educators to innovate and be creative. When educators feel empowered and supported, their job satisfaction rises, and subsequently, they are more likely to stay (OECD 2014; OECD 2019). We see this role consolidation not only as a way to retain educators but also as an opportunity to bolster educators and strengthen school culture. We’d love to hear your examples of role consolidation as a method of lightening educators’ loads. Share your creative ideas with kathryn@well4edu.org and, with your permission, we’ll feature them in future blog posts.
About the Authors
Dr. Kathryn Kennedy (she/her/hers): With one foot in digital and online learning and the other in mental health and wellness, Kathryn has been cultivating two primary passions for over 20 years. She serves as founder and principal consultant of Consult4ED Group and founder and executive director of Wellness for Educators. She is author of the forthcoming book The Mind-Body Connection for Educators: Intentional Movement for Wellness (expected publication date: March 28, 2023), which serves as the first in a four-part book series. She lives in Ithaca, New York.
Dr. Rebecca C. Itow (she/her) is principal of IU High School Online. She earned her Ph.D. in learning sciences from Indiana University and was a public high school teacher. Driven to facilitate safe spaces for learners to navigate their academic journeys in valuable and valued ways, Rebecca researches, designs, and implements responsive online pedagogical practices in digital learning environments. Her work guides current university and community partnerships that innovate online teaching, learning, and design.