First, Let's Fire all the Managers

This has been a insightful inspiration for building a model for sustaining a good culture beyond an individual leader.

http://hbr.org/2011/12/first-lets-fire-all-the-managers/ar/1

The myth of “Key words” in word problem

Let me be candid regarding the performance of our students’ mid-year achievement in math particularly Paper 2. Majority of the students in the level really have difficulty in word problems. As I marked, I observed many students rather grab any numbers they see tucked away somewhere in the problem and just guess which operation to perform than read the problem. I wondered about the effectiveness of one suggested intervention for these students were to practice more word problems.

As I go through the word problem, some students commented, “What! Read the whole thing?”…”But last time, teacher A did not make us read! We just look for the key words that would tell us which thing to do.” “What do you mean by key words?” I would persist to ask the student. “You know, like if you see altogether, you are supposed to add up all up. Or if you see product, then it is times”

Such responses from students made me reflect on not only what we teachers teach but also how we teachers teach math. Interestingly, students and some teachers alike still adhere to the myth about the value of key word(s), which I see as a tragic mistake. Experts in reading comprehension – the in-depth understanding of meaningful written word – agree that while key word(s) in context can help build meaning of a passage, these key word(s) are no substitute for reading the full context. I personally believe in this, especially on the need to read the whole context. In addition, there are helpful strategies to better comprehend the context, namely making connection, determining importance, asking questions, predicting, visualizing, ..etc which I considered as effective interventions in helping students improve their word problems. Such strategies to solving word problem will better get our students to focus, think, consider and so solve the word problems.  

Of Good Mathematical Learning

Contrary to many students’, parents’ and even fellow teachers’ belief, mathematics is not just about numbers and shapes with routine questions, memorization of facts and formulae, rote procedures followed by specific answer. It goes beyond measurement in gain of student achievement test. I see mathematics as a way of thinking which include thinking, reasoning and communicating, interpreting data, estimation, seeking alternative approaches, all of which are central to problem solving. This translates to what I see mathematics students as being confident and enthusiastic problem solvers who effectively deal with mathematical ideas and mathematical thinking.  

I envision teachers finding the joy in their mathematics teaching as seeing their students authentically and enthusiastically involved in learning, reasoning and communicating and solving problems. By asking good questions, providing good problems, challenging and perhaps even frustrating their students by provoking thought, mathematics teachers increase the probability of developing mathematical thinkers for tomorrow.

Although I mentioned that rote procedures such as the exercising and improving the ability to do math computation do not necessarily equate to true mathematical learning. I know that such skills are necessary for solving mathematical problems. In addition, it is such skills which are quantified in the national examinations and recognized by others namely students, parents, employers and society. This has led to times whereby students only worked to achieve good examination results but mathematics is not well learnt. I often hear of feedbacks on such students by teachers of higher education in the Polytechnics and Junior Colleges.

Personally, I believe that mathematics education is a challenging and yet fulfilling adventure that requires our perseverance and commitment, especially if we are to ensure good mathematical learning, with good achievement in examination results.

My 2012 Semester One Reading

As part of my own professional growth, I will like to share about a book I had read during this Semester entitled: “Great By Choice” by Jim Collins. I am interested in reading his book as I find part of Collin’s work looks deeply on the behaviors of leaders. As I read the book, I came to realize that one of the advantages of examining how multiple leaders exhibit these behaviors is that I become clearer of how then to characterize and describe the leadership behavior skills, and that such behavior skills become distinctive in my own endeavors.

In his work, Collin collected and examined data sets of companies that achieved spectacular results over 15 years while operating in an unstable environment and yet providing returns at least 10 times greater than others in the same industry which he called as “10Xer”. The main theme of the book is that the ability of any company not merely survives, but to thrive in the face of extreme conditions, depends on the quality of decisions its leadership makes. Uncertainty, chaos and luck are constraints, which great leaders understand that cannot be controlled, only to manage. Interestingly, in 10Xer companies, “the best leaders were not the biggest risk takers or the most visionary or the most creative”. The research boils down to three core behaviors: 1) fanatic discipline 2) empirical creativity 3) productive paranoia. The first type of behavior mentioned is fanatic discipline which referred to consistency in action – with mental interdependence and ability to remain consistent in the face of pressures. The second type of behavior identified is empirical creativity which relies primarily on analysis over actions which gave them a level of confidence that allowed bold moves and bound their risk. The third type of behavior is termed as productive paranoia which referred to leaders staying highly attuned to threats and changes in their environment even when all is going well.

Forefront of my thinking is the importance of such behavior(s) of a leader as how leaders behave via members of a group will endeavor facilitating our students’ learning. Of the three core behaviors, I am currently working on two of these behaviors namely being more empirical and disciplined, while the third behavior of being productive paranoia may not be a good starting point for beginning middle managers because I am still attuning to the role. Below is an illustration of what I see the behavior of “being more empirical” mean for teaching and learning.  

Being more empirical uses processes (relying upon direct observation, practical experimentation and direct engagement with tangible evidence) which are close to my own activities – my keenness on the use of data to facilitate change.  I believe that, as an outcome of the use of data, teachers will become more confident and use such data to guide their teaching and learning instructions. I also believe that I have a responsibility to use the data wisely and to consider a variety of data and to assist the teachers to use the data to better learning of our students. Deciding what to pay attention to, determining meaningful learning that will facilitate discussion with teachers to me is an important task. The concept of “Fire bullets, then cannonballs” – where the bullet is a low risk, low cost, low distraction test that ascertain an opportunity and the cannonballs are riskier, more costly initiatives  – is obvious and yet profound that has gotten me to think about my data gathering process in the new light.

How to shoot bullet? A question we may have in our minds. It helps to make a list as I endeavor to categorize “bullet” and below are some examples I have come out with.

1. Getting students’/teachers’ responses before the implementation of Sec 4 Night PTM programs

2. The ICT time during staff time promoting the use of ICT to all teachers

3. Use teaching principles as my teaching pedagogy – “make students think”

4. Changing the primary medium from text to video in ICT programs and gauge how the students response

I hope by shooting such bullets, it would enabled me to pay attention to, determine meaningful learning that puts me the in path to introducing exciting and impact initiatives for my students learning.

Number Sense

A four and a seven years old when asked if they would rather have four or five sweets, did not pick up the larger number. However, when an adult was asked the same question, “of course I would select five sweets.” 

 

It seemed that comparing numbers which are close together is difficult, even when both children could easy count the number of sweets in the diagrams as shown in Figure 1 above. And yet, they picked up the larger number when comparing numbers which are far apart as shown in the Figure 2 below. This was an interesting observation and made me ponder why.

An article attached provided me with an understanding of such mathematical difficulty in children, particularly on magnitude comparison.  This showed that while both children have learnt to count, they do not realize that counting numbers are connected by size especially in a “one-more than” situation. How then can I teach them so that they realize the linkage between mathematical procedure (counting) and mathematical relationship (magnitude comparison)? Is number sense teachable? Number sense is “a skill or kind of knowledge about numbers rather than an intrinsic process.” Thus, number sense should be teachable (Gersten, et al, 2005). Some suggestions provided by the article to develop number sense are making sense of quantity and use of mental number lines. For me, I think that the “one more” concept can be reinforced.

This single observation showed me the importance of connecting counting and relative size as they are learning numbers and such linkage is essential in the development of the number sense even at this early stage.

Reference

Gersten, R., Jordan, N.C. and Flojo, J. R. (2005) ‘Early identification and intervention for  students with mathematics difficulties’, Journal of Learning Disabilities, 38, 293 – 304.

Personal and Professional Commitment of teachers

In one of my teacher’s reflection, she spoke on the good teaching, on how teaching has been joyful for her. I will like to follow up on this topic of good teaching and how some teachers after many years of weaving the “fabric” of our nation with their students and the subjects they teach, tension begins to show. I know that teaching is connected to our hearts as we connect with our students, especially when teachers project themselves onto our students – the more one loves teaching, the more heart breaking it can be as well.

Sad to say, I see some teachers losing heart as years of teaching goes by. Now, the teachers get by on a day to day basis, doing the minimum teaching requirement, looking for loopholes not to be involved, all these are in part I think because teaching is a daily exercise of “personal commitment”. In my teacher’s reflection, she spoke of personal and professional fulfillment – both of which I find it important for good teaching. I now make sense of what my principal previously mentioned about “personal and professional mission”. The reason is because teaching is done at the intersection of personal and professional life. As teachers try to connect themselves with students, teachers are vulnerable to the judgment of others, particularly our students. Hence, there are teachers who disconnect from the students so as not to be in such vulnerable state. Instead, they play-act the teacher’s part with words are like “speech marks in cartoons” without real commitment.

How can then teachers take heart in teaching once more? Methods, I do not know of any. However, I believe that there is a need to understand our condition that makes us want to take up teaching in the first place. If our personal mission about who, and how we are still stands for teaching, then such personal mission will redirect us back to do what all good teachers do professionally – give our heart to our students!

Evidence-informed actions – Cohort Dean

2012 is another exciting year for me. It was my second year as a middle manager and the first year as the professional developer and the cohort dean. This week I will like to speak on my role of the cohort dean for the graduating classes – especially with regards to the collection and interpretation of certain data and using the information, moving towards a sensible course of action(s). As the cohort dean, I believe that one of my roles is to recognize patterns based on evidence of the student cohort that were readily available to me to help mobilized teachers into action. I started off with the analysis of the 2011 academic results (SA2 L1B5 and L1B4), and my initial impression of my cohort of students was one of somewhat self-satisfied complacency – but should the academic result be the only source I should use to form my opinion regarding the learning of my students? While academic result may be one of the narrowest forms of indicators for my students’ learning, however, it is also one of the important factors for enabling my students to further their learning.

Hence, with the purpose of seeking more information so as to enable earlier preparation for the coming national examination, I consider a variety of data sources and started to seek information from students and teachers. As a newly appointed cohort dean, I had to think about, and then to act on, the improved academic result of my graduating students – and I knew that this was not just be the cohort dean’s responsibility, but the entire teacher’s involvement was necessary for enhanced learning of students to take place. After analyzing this year’s academic result (CA1 L1B5 and L1B4) of the cohort, I found that the results were generally good. However, I was concerned about the new and repeated academic at risk students, hence, these students as shown below were highlighted to both management (different subject IP heads) as well as the teachers (form teachers, subject teachers). Additional information on achievement such as the students’ mastery of the various content knowledge was also provided.

The teachers believed that (from teachers’ feedback), although not perfect, things were pretty alright (some cited a reduction in the number of at risk students in their class) as they went into action, finding out why these students performed poorly in their CA1, and lending whatever support(s) is needed for these students and this was to be looped back through communication on the matters of students’ concern and remedial actions to be taken. Through these conversations and feedback with teachers and students, I could identify three distinct groups. The first group is I described as “sixteen year old’s wanting to be twenty ones” seemed disinterested in anything other than socialising “at this moment”. The second group I call them the study “just before the actual exam” types. The third group I thought were the “lost sheep”. For a variety of reasons (given to their form teachers), these students seem to be floundering in their learning and in their lives. Now what? Without some kind of helpful intervention, would these students end up as academic failures? I know the genuine interest and commitment on the part of my colleagues, but is there a need for change? Where to begin?

 I heard about the issues they faced (the why) and see most are likely based entirely or in part on factors related to motivation. What is the motivation I am referring to? Well, the drive and the need to do well academically. Now I will try to find experienced teachers who may reach out to them and speak to them on their learning experiences – to know what support worked for them and what did not (to understand how they learn and consequently what can help them to learn). I will also continue to monitor the progress of these three distinct group of students that I had identified now in term 3 and ensure collaborative parent-school relationship and this is based on parents and teachers understanding each other’s perspectives and realities. Hence, the importance for the parents to have a clear understanding of their child’s school program such as the Term 4 program, Night Study Program - all of which was communicated to the parents during the parent teacher meeting. With these understandings and a commitment to collaborate (to ensure that their child start preparation for examinations NOW), parents and teachers can then work together to create a positive and effective learning for our students. Having better understood the characteristics of our at-risk students – the need to develop the drive to do well academically, it became clear that our Sec 4E5N Term 4 program is important and essential as “peaks of motivation – for persistence, active choice and effort” in helping our students in the preparation for the coming national examinations.

The actions above showed my attempt as the cohort dean to be more evidence-informed so as how best to develop and implement a process that actually provide useful information that may influence the thinking and actions of teachers to enable genuine improvement in learning of my students.