October | 2011 | Dare to Care

October 29, 2011
by Denise Krebs
5 Comments

Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose

I just returned from a conference for adjunct faculty at Buena Vista University. The keynote speaker was Troyce Fisher, a great educational leader in Iowa. She helped us unpack the college’s vision statement:

BVU’s Vision
We aspire to be a remarkable educational community, focused on learning, challenging every student, faculty and staff member to set and meet the highest standards of academic achievement, character, conscience and compassion.

My greatest takeaway came from the Dan Pink RSA Animate “Drive” video (below). When people are engaged in meaningful work, the motivation for them to do better is not for pay; they are motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Autonomy – When people are self-directed and engaged, they do wonderful things. Management needs to get out of their way.

Mastery – People have an urge to get better at stuff. We do it not to get wealthy, but because it’s satisfying. Technically-sophisticated highly skilled people all over the world are working for free. (e.g., Linux, Apache, Wikipedia). Challenge and mastery are great motivators.

Purpose – When profit becomes unhitched from purpose, the results are uninspired workplaces and people don’t do great things. Flourishing companies are animated by purpose.

I like that I am part of an organization that aspires for every student, faculty, and staff member to “meet the highest standards of academic achievement, character, conscience and compassion.” It seems they know something about what I have learned over the past year about motivation, being a lifelong learner, and 21st century learning for all students.

Now, my question is, can I apply the motivating qualities of autonomy, mastery, and purpose to my full-time teaching job with 7th and 8th graders?

Autonomy – Can I get out of their way and let them make decisions on how and what to learn? Hmm…I’m not sure. We have the Iowa Core/Common Core hanging over our classrooms, feeling stifled at times. However, I believe there is freedom built into the standards. I know my 7th and 8th graders cannot be as autonomous as adults who have already found their way into engaging and meaningful careers. I still have to offer some structure. As Steve Hargadon recently said at #ITEC11, “When we balance structure and freedom, we unleash individual energy and potential.” I am working on what that balance of structure and freedom looks like in my classroom.

Mastery – If I manage to give them some autonomy in choosing their way, then the projects they are working on should be things they are motivated to do well and get good at.

Purpose – Education can be purposeful. It has to be for more than the grades they earn on their report cards. What a lame excuse for a motivator! I tell my students, if it’s only about grades for them, then let’s just all pack up and go home now.

We just finished a wonderful “unit” in 8th grade exploratory, where students planned and accomplished a Relay Recess for all the students in K-8 in our school system. Talk about purposeful! They were motivated! They were given lots of autonomy in the planning (along with the ready support of four of their teachers), they were given time to pull it off with excellence (mastery), and the purpose was obvious when we saw the wonderful time that was had by the K-8 students, survivors and other guests. (More posting on our American Cancer Society fundraisers and the Relay Recess later.)

What do you think?

Can we give students meaningful work all the time so that these intrinsic motivators guide them? Rather than the “payment” of the grades on their report card?

Here is the Dan Pink video. It’s really enlightening!

October 23, 2011
by Denise Krebs
13 Comments

You Are a #Rockstar

Tracy Watanabe has tagged me in the #Rockstar meme for bloggers. Originally started by Miguel Guhlin, the meme has been traveling around the globe for about three weeks now. Thanks for including me, Tracy!

5 Ways Blogging Has Rocked My World

Like-minded colleagues – Like Tracy, I too am energized by those who are passionate about education. In her Rockstar post, Tracy said, “I thrive when I’m having fun learning, creating things, connecting, and making a difference in the lives of students and teachers. My batteries recharge when I’m around others who have the same passion.” Yes, indeed. Me too! I have been energized and more engaged in teaching since I began blogging.
Writing – I’ve always written and wanted to be a writer. Now I am, in my own bloggy sort of way.
Contributing – Sometime during the past year, I dared to contribute, as Miguel suggested. I began to participate in the online conversation. It was actually quite simple. Instead of just randomly wandering to an occasional blog post, I became deliberate. I signed up for free online services and began making an online presence for myself. I joined the conversation by logging in, leaving comments, and sharing my own writing.
Connecting - As a result of daring to contribute, I have made connections. I have new friends and collaboration partners through my experiences blogging.
Inspiring – My students are bloggers too. We inspire each other. They have seen me make connections over the past year, and several of them are stretching beyond the limits of what I’ve asked them to do on their blogs. They are making connections and contributing to the world. I would like to think that I inspired some of that, and that rocks my world!

Blogs I Follow

I have dozens of blogs I follow, and on any given day, hundreds of blog posts wait patiently in my Google Reader. To be honest, most of them I just glance at the titles. Many I scan. Few I read. The ones I read most faithfully are by those that I have connections with. When I see that these folks have posted, I read their posts from top to bottom. These people have become my friends, and I want to see what they are saying. Tracy Watanabe, Sheri Edwards and the fine bloggers below are some of those who have made blogging special for me.

One of these is a local friend who has been blogging longer than I, one is a brand new blogger sharing her beautiful photographs, one is a young teacher fairly new to blogging, and three are friends I met in the teacher blogging challenge in January of 2011.

Nancy Carroll – Teaching is Elementary

Michelle TeGrootenhuis – MrsTG.com

JoAnn Jacobs – Color Wheel Symphony

Theresa Allen – CSRN Technology

Lyn Howlin – Cosy Corner

Laura Coughlin – Love::Teaching

How Has Blogging Rocked Your World?

I am tagging these six to join us in the #Rockstar meme. Should you choose to accept this challenge, you can write a blog post telling how blogging has rocked your world. Link back to the original post by Miguel and then tag five (or six, as Sheri and I did) more participants.

Thanks for rocking my world with your beautiful blogging and the connections you have made with my students and me. You are all ROCKSTARS!

October 21, 2011
by Denise Krebs
3 Comments

I Am So Proud of My Students!

We are busy–up-to-our-eyeballs busy–getting ready to host a K-8 Relay Recess for the American Cancer Society. Junior high students come early to school, work during recess, and then some more at home–creating genius ideas, editing handouts, making gifts for survivors who will join us.

I can’t even begin to tell you how proud I am of them and the REAL-LIFE work that they are doing this month. We are all energized and excited. This is what school should be about! It’s been fun to see in action the principle: Never Work Harder Than Your Students. They are definitely working as hard as, or harder than, I am! I will share more next week after the Relay Recess, but today I have a picture of one of their fundraisers, The Tree of Hope, which is hanging in our entryway at school.

In addition, here are some of their blog posts about our fundraisers.

October 17, 2011
by Denise Krebs
2 Comments

Iowa Technology Education Connection

Today was the first day of ITEC11. It’s been a challenging and thought-provoking day. ITEC is populated by technology leaders and newbies, alike. The name Iowa Technology and Education Connection is a good name. We are not only making connections with other educators, but we are discussing how education is connected to technology. Just some random thoughts…

Which is more important in our technology-driven environment? The pedagogy or the technology? They are interwoven into one. We’ve always taught with technology–pencils and books are technology. I enjoyed hearing Punya Mishra’s comments about this.

The terminology is changing from technology use to technology integration. Now, to technology innovation.

Can we teachers get out of the way enough to allow students to solve problems innovatively with technology?

Evaluate where you are and where you want to go on this Technology Integration Matrix. I am nowhere near the lower right hand corner, but that’s where I’m headed! I want to get out of the way so my students can be involved in goal-directed transformation. Sounds like Student-Centered Learning to me!

My favorite takeaway from today was Gary Stager’s keynote address this morning. So simple, yet so profound. “Ten Things You Can Do With A Laptop” are all available for children and adults to accomplish in school together. There are resources galore for these and other activities for our geniuses. What are we waiting for? Let’s get out of their way.

Write a Novel
Share Your Knowledge
Answer Tough Questions
Make Sense of Data
Design a Video Game
Build a Killer Robot
Lose Weight
Direct a Blockbuster
Compose a Symphony
Change the World
(Bonus) Be a Scientist, a Mathematician, an Engineer, a Luthier, etc., etc., etc.

Can’t wait for tomorrow! Day 2 of ITEC.

October 15, 2011
by Denise Krebs
7 Comments

NaNoWriMo YWP Blog Series Index

I have been a crazy blogging maniac the last week. A friend made a suggestion, and I took it seriously. In fact, I wrote 8 posts about NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers Program, sometimes known as the YWP. I guess I am getting warmed up for NaNoWriMo because I have written exactly 5,168 words since October 7. That is the equivalent of 3.1 days of writing on my novel starting in November, but–oops!–it’s been 9 days since I started.

That’s OK! I can ramp it up. I know I can do this!

Anyway, now this series is over. (Unless, of course, someone mentions another potential topic…)

No…no…I must tell myself. It is now time to try to find a plot, meet my characters, and freeze some casseroles.

Here is an index of the NaNoWriMo blog posts I made, which I hope will be of some help to teachers who are new to National Novel Writing Month with their students. You still have plenty of time to learn about it, sign up, and get started! (I know, because my first year, students actually started noveling on November 1 before many of them had had a chance to sign up.)

Later Posts
Noveling, the Common Core and More

Magical Moments in Teaching

Congratulations, Winner

We Wrote Novels

Off on Another Year of NaNoWriMo

Best of luck and happy noveling to all the Young Writers and their teachers!

October 15, 2011
by Denise Krebs
1 Comment

NaNoWriMo YWP – Student Accountability and Benchmarks

Being a winner is better than any grade!

I hate grading! I wish that I could just learn in partnership with my students. I wish that we could connect and contribute in the global world of authentic learning, and that I would never again have to put a grade in the grade book. That’s my hope for an ideal world, and maybe a transformed educational system.

However, today, I still need to record grades. On some level, I must “grade” students’ participation in the Young Writer’s Program of National Novel Writing Month. Here is what I do for grading.

First of all, if I have a student who is having a hard time getting started or becoming engaged, I have numerous individual conferences with him. Once he gets going, then we are both happy.

Next, I have benchmarks that students meet. Each of these are graded, about one a week.

Their profile on the Virtual Classroom is graded for completeness and engagement. They should have an avatar and answer the questions. What I mean by engagement: Are they making their profile interesting to those who have to read it? Do they go in and revise it after the first day?
An interesting novel excerpt is proofread and posted on their profile novel information. This may be the best-written passage of their novel and is usually 300 words or less.
By about the second or third week, I expect a good, proofread synopsis of their novel. Even if they don’t know the ending, they can still write a good book talk about it, something they might use to add to the back cover someday.

Finally, this year, because each student made a goal that I approved, I will also record a small grade based on whether they reach their goal. Remember, this has to be done lightly and not a major grade because really, you aren’t going to be able to know right away if they copied and re-pasted a couple thousand words into the center at the last minute. I would much rather they have an authentic noveling experience than just fake it to get a grade on an inflated assignment.

That’s about it. I record only four grades in the grade book for the month of November, and almost everyone gets a good grade.

Revising and editing is another topic, which proves a little harder. But that’s not for November.

Image by Sean and Lauren, shared with a CC By 2.0 Attribution License.

October 15, 2011
by Denise Krebs
3 Comments

NaNoWriMo YWP – Keeping Motivated

As NaNoWriMo founder and author Chris Baty says,

“We can all do amazing, impossible things when

given a deadline,

a supportive community,

and unlimited access to chocolate and caffeine.”

Here are a few ways students and I keep motivated during November to do the amazing, impossible task of writing a novel.

Deadline.

So many deadlines in my world are flexible depending on the situation. NaNoWriMo is not one of them. We must log in to NaNoWriMo and upload into the handy-dandy word counter our completed novels by midnight of November 30. That is a constant prickle on my calendar. We have to stay on target. For a 10,000 word goal, that means 300 words a day, every single day. Or about 500 a day on school days.

For the teacher, it’s 1,667 words a day, every single day. We do not stop writing just because we have parent-teacher conferences, weekend plans, illness, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. We remember our hard and fast deadline is November 30.

However, we don’t wait until November 30. We log in to NaNoWriMo every single day and update our word count. (Google Docs or any other writing program you will use counts the words for you.) That is motivational, for sure! You can watch your progress chart climbing the mountain of noveling ecstasy!

Community.

Really, my greatest motivation comes from my students. They are fully engaged. November is all of our favorite month in English class. I love that they talk about conflict and resolution, describing with detail (because it can add a hundred words to your word count), and realistic dialogue. These are topics that, all of a sudden, are motivating and imperative. I’ve never taught a lesson on any of those topics that gets a similar response.

Our Virtual Classroom is another way we build community with others outside of our school community. Forums, directory map, and other available community-building devices are great global connectors. In addition, my class follows @NaNoWriMoYWP on Twitter.

As an adult, though, I am involved not only in the YWP NaNoWriMo, but in the NaNoWriMo program too. Motivation galore inhabits that world! On Twitter I also follow @NaNoWriMo, @NaNoWordSprints, and then the hashtag on Twitter: #nanowrimo. A new blog I follow this year is WriMos FTW!. In these places, you will find unlimited motivation to reach your adult goal of 50,000 words.

Caffeine and Chocolate.

Now, I’m not in the habit of giving my students caffeine, for they are pretty much revved up on a regular basis. I do, however, give them candy. My class meets from 1:10-1:50. Prime time for the yawns in my experience. I also avoid chocolate, as it goes down too fast and gums up the keyboard.

Most often, I randomly pass out candy to everyone, but sometimes they earn it. When they have a day where they write at least 5%, they get to join the 5% Club for that day. Then the next day when they come to class, they get to choose from my candy jar. Usually they will find suckers and hard candy that their mouths can whittle away at while they type ferociously. That’s really all the extrinsic rewards I give.

Other motivators.

Students are allowed to bring headphones or mp3 players to listen to music while we write. I wouldn’t have thought of that because I’m not much of a music listener. NaNoWriMo did, though. One of the questions on each person’s profile is, “What is your favorite music to novel by?” That is a huge motivator. They know when they come to English class in November they can listen to their own music. Some take advantage of it and others don’t. It makes for an extremely peaceful noveling classroom environment. Magical!

Do you have any other ways you keep motivation high during November?

Sucker photo by Vic at vvvracer

October 14, 2011
by Denise Krebs
3 Comments

Ah, Friday! A Few of My Favorite Things of the Week

Inspired by MrsDrPoe‘s post, I’m posting a few of my favorite photos of this week too. It was a rough week for me–some bad things happened, but lots of good things happened too. I snapped pictures of many of the happenings.

I harvested my sunflowers.

My history class and I did history, prayed and walked at the cemetery.

We had a chili cook off at teacher inservice.

We had Miss W and Davo visit from Tasmania.

Miss W came bearing gifts!

October 14, 2011
by Denise Krebs
3 Comments

An Interview With Anna

I asked sophomore Anna to respond to some questions about her 8th grade experience with NaNoWriMo. Here are her responses:

What was the most rewarding part of writing a novel?

Well, I know the most rewarding part was seeing the actual book in my hands. A book that looked like a book from a library, except I wrote it.

What was the hardest part about writing your book?

The hardest part was finding the perfect ending and where to stop. You don’t want the book to drag on, but you just have so many ideas. Sometimes the ideas don’t work together so that’s also challenging. The ending is usually my favorite part of the book because that’s when you find out how the story all fits together.

If you had time, would you do NaNoWriMo again? Do you think NaNoWriMo was a valuable use of our English class?

I wouldn’t mind doing it again. I would TOTALLY rather write another book than read A.R!!!!! Usually if I have free time, I have to read, but I’d rather write a book than read a book. That’s boring! haha

So, I guess that answers if it’s valuable English time because I think absolutely! It helps your English a lot. You’re writing a book, so you don’t want any grammar mistakes or bad vocabulary.

What suggestions would you give a young writer getting ready to write his/her first novel?

Always write about something you’d like to read or something that interests you and write something that you would think is the perfect book. It’s way easier than it sounds. Writing about something you love is easy.

Was it worth all the work you put in to revise and edit your book for publishing?

It was 100% worth revising my novel. I love showing it off! I don’t technically want people reading it, but it’s crazy to have a book say my name on the bottom. Out of all the things to do in my life, who would have thought having a printed copy of a book I wrote would be one of them? Not many people can say they have a copy of a book they wrote

What could your teacher have done to make it a better experience when you wrote your novel?

I think you were the perfect teacher for it, Mrs. Krebs You let people choose if they wanted to do it (I don’t see why they wouldn’t). I loved the sticker chart you had to show us how far we were and see how far others are. I liked how you did it in Google Docs, so we could share our stories with friends and see if they have any corrections or ideas. Anyway, I know that’s a lot but I hope it helps a little!

Yes, Anna, it did! Thank you so much for, yet again, sharing your genius with the world! More of Anna’s genius can be found here and here.

P.S. I no longer let students decide if they will participate in NaNoWriMo. It’s required. What do you think about that? Should they have a choice like they did during Anna’s year?

October 14, 2011
by Denise Krebs
3 Comments

NaNoWriMo YWP – Virtual Classroom Scavenger Hunt

The Virtual Classroom is loads of fun. It was new last year, and I learned how to use it with the help of good tutorials and plenty of NaNoMailing with the always helpful staff of the YWP. The how-to instructions for using the virtual classroom can be found here on the YWP NaNoWriMo site. The step-by-step explanations with screenshots are better than any I would give, so go with those. Questions? Ask me or Chris Angotti and staff.

Anyway, once I successfully set up my virtual classroom, I like to start out with a scavenger hunt late in October to get the students figuring out what’s available in our virtual classroom.

I send them to explore, where I have hidden a few items (in plain sight) using features I want them to practice.

In the Forum:

Begin your first thread something like this…”Welcome to the Forum. We can have discussions here and reply to each other. Reply to this thread and tell something you are good at. Then see Mrs. Krebs for________.” (A sticker, extra credit on an assignment, a free-time pass, a sucker, or whatever suits your fancy.)
Make a two-part post: Ask students to respond to a thread (favorite sport or favorite food or anything), and then, Part 2, reply to a reply of a friend. The goal for this is just to get them experimenting with the features of the Virtual Classroom.
Ask students to upload an avatar to their author info for another prize or points good for something. Or add novel info or set their goal or whatever else in their profile you want them to complete.

In NaNoMail:

Send a NaNoMail with something like this: “Send Mrs. Krebs a NaNoMail telling about one character who might be in your novel. When she reads it she’ll put a coupon for _______ in your mailbox.”
Here’s another one: “When you read this NaNoMail, tell Mrs. Krebs your favorite color and she’ll give you a piece of gum.”

My goal in using this scavenger hunt is to get students familiar with the virtual classroom, to add their author and novel information and practice with NaNoMail and the Forums. When a student comes up and receives a stick of gum from me, others inevitably say, “Hey, how come s/he gets gum?” Then they quickly begin to dig a little deeper.

Links

The virtual classroom also has a section where you can add links for students to help them with their novel. Good ones I put in this section:

Name Generator
Who is Yanko Nedelcho Borisov? A potential character in my novel thanks to the “Behind the Name” Random Name Generator. What a thesaurus does for adjectives, the Random Name Generator does for characters. I told the name generator that I wanted a Bulgarian man’s name–first, middle and last. They gave me Yanko Nedelcho Borisov. His wife is Zaharina, and his two children are Gardza and Marta. If I decide I don’t want Bulgarian characters, I can generate Frisian or French, Japanese or Jewish, Roman or rapper, hillbilly or hippy, and so many more! Great fun, especially when I need a lot of characters and get tired of using all the names of my friends and acquaintances.

Music
I do not like to listen to music while I work or write. That may be a generational preference or that I just don’t regularly listen to music anytime. However, I appreciate that NaNoWriMo encourages us to consider what novel writing music we listen to, so I actually tried it a few times. Depending on what scene I wanted to write, I listened to some triumphant classical pieces or some sad and mellow ballads. I think it added a few hundred to my word count (especially during Beethoven’s 5th) and perhaps some inspiration, as well. I have links for AOL Radio and Pandora in my Virtual Classroom, so students can easily access music (even though Pandora is blocked at our school). They are allowed to bring headphones and mp3 players in November.