Minnesota Teacher of the Year

I always compare Labor Day weekend to the that silent spot at the top of a rollercoaster, right before the coaster makes its first big drop. The stark contrast of pace in a teacher’s life is never so pronounced as it is on that September weekend before the first classes start.

For me, I always have a mix of nervousness, fear, and excitement on that last Monday night. I think some of the fear comes from a heightened sense of how important a good start to the year is. All teachers will tell you how important the first week is, and how important the first month is. However, the more I teach, the more I’ve come to realize that September is even more important than I ever imagined it to be. Everything is magnified in September. So many elements of the class take shape: pace, energy, focus, motivation, belief, work habits. Knowing how important the start is always gives me a bit of a knot in my stomach as things start out, because if things go well in September, generally they’ll be going well in April and May. Mess up September, and you can be looking up at a long year.

Once classes start, however, I’m reminded of how much I like the energy of the classroom. So many of my concerns about the nuances of classroom management can be addressed most effectively if I simply focus my energy on making my classroom fun, challenging, and engaging. This isn’t to say that classroom management isn’t important—it’s incredibly important—but it’s always a powerful realization for me the degree to which effective classroom management centers on engaging classes, and I always seem to have to relearn this each fall in order for the knot in my stomach to vanish. This year has been no exception. As we enter the second week of school now, my fear and nervousness have largely faded away, and I can concentrate on teaching.

My Teacher of the Year responsibilities have shown me a different side of education—a side that is incredibly exciting and rewarding to experience—but the core of my experience is still the classroom, and it feels good to be back.

Whoops. Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve updated. With the flurry of activity at the end of school, things got fairly busy during the first half of June. By the time things wrapped up, I was fairly spent. After a week of playing with my children, entertaining visiting friends, and watching some movies, I’ve gotten back to work this past week.

This summer I’ll be working on a new online Japanese course for Northern Star Online, revamping our two existing online Japanese courses, teaching Japanese online, and helping some Chinese teachers learn about constructing/teaching online courses. These projects started in earnest this past week.

This still will leave quite a bit of time still to spend with family, recharge, and enjoy myself. As a teacher, I love the revitalizing that I can do during the summer months. I try to swim outside on a daily basis, get outside as much as possible, and spend a lot of time with family and friends.

Teacher of the Year events are relatively light in the next two months, but pick up again around the middle of August. I did have an interview this past week with Plymouth Magazine, who will be doing a feature article during September. Early in July, I’ll be doing a seminar on Active Learning for a group of administrators at Intermediate District 287.

I’ll be traveling on vacation this upcoming week, but am aiming to write more consistently in a couple of weeks. I still have a list of topics I’d like to address and a half dozen or so topics I’d like to wrap up.

I’ve spent some time in the past week over at Scott McLeod’s Dangerously Irrelevant blog. I’m impressed at the consistently interesting posts he puts up. This week, for example, is Change Week. It focuses on elements of technological change in K-12 education. This post is a good example of the quality of stuff he puts up. It discusses elements of the spread of innovation through a group or organization.

I would argue that one of the biggest obstacles to technological innovation in high schools is the current work conditions in schools. Class sizes have crept to extraordinarily high levels in many schools, putting extreme workloads on many teachers. Based on experience and observation I’d say that the average high school teacher has at most one hour of contract time per day that is free (after responsibilities such as meetings, phone calls, helping students, etc., have been addressed). During this time the teacher must prepare and grade for an average of five classes. With class sizes often exceeding 35 students, an hour is hardly enough time to cover this. This leaves scant time to play with technology, unless the teacher is willing to do so on his or her own time.

The complexity and transience of technology create more obstacles for a teacher. Learning the necessary skills to use a new piece of software and create lessons for it can take a significant investment of time for an already overloaded teacher. Furthermore, this investment is top heavy. It can often take 10-20 hours of work before a teacher will have anything tangible and ready for use in the classroom. Also, good teachers develop units and lessons they can design once and use numerous times. Technology-based units, however, are never finished. Software and websites often change, and change quickly. Maintenance time must be factored into development plans. I’ve seen teachers work hard over the summer building online courses reliant on external websites, only to then see the teachers struggle to put out fires over the course of the school year as websites move, disappear, or change links.

As another example, just this winter I trained a number of teachers on the excellent (and at the time, free of charge) QuizStar program, which is a website that allows teachers to set up class lists online and build online quizzes for them. This is a slick, easy-to-use program that teachers can dig right in and use. Several teachers (myself included) were building libraries of quizzes for use in their courses. Then, this spring QuizStar changed to a fee-based format ($36/year for individual teachers). Argh. Our district didn’t have money to pay the fee. Teachers who weren’t willing to pay out of their pockets felt that their work in learning the program and building up quizzes was largely wasted, as they no longer could access their quizzes without paying the fee.

This doesn’t mean to say that technological change can’t be implemented in schools. It can be done and it is being done. But I think that the strategies to implementing change take careful consideration, and often it is this level where technological innovation in schools goes askew. At some point in the upcoming week, I’ll try to outline some of the strategies and programs that we’ve found effective in implementing technological change at some of our Alternative Learning Centers in Intermediate District 287.

Technorati Tags: Dangerously Irrelevant, education, technology, innovation, class size, QuizStar, Mike Smart

Finally catching up on that list of things to write about…

(This is the second part of three that describes the Teacher of the Year Selection Weekend. Here is a link to Part I)

The Saturday morning of the interview—although I had set my alarm for 8:00 a.m. in hopes of catching up on sleep—I snapped wide-awake at 5:00 a.m., ready to go. This would have been fine if I had my interview at 5:30, but my interview wasn’t until 11:30. This also would have been fine if I had gotten to sleep at a reasonable hour the night before, but I don’t think I fell asleep until after 1:00 a.m. Yes, I was just a bit nervous. Fortunately, adrenaline rocks: I had plenty of energy. I got up, read for a bit, ate breakfast, and jogged. As the time drew near, I surprisingly found myself getting calmer and calmer.

One of the neat aspects of the Teacher of the Year interview day, which in our case started at 8:30 a.m. and stretched until 4 p.m., is the “waiting room”, which was a room set off at the hotel for finalists to relax in before and after their interviews. I spent a good bit of the day there, as did all of the other finalists. The time spent in the waiting room became one of the highlights of the weekend. You get a chance to get to know the other finalists, cheer them on before their interviews, and congratulate them afterwards. We spent a good part of the day laughing, talking about the process, and simply sharing stories. I was also surprised to hear that several of the finalists had equal or greater trouble sleeping as I did the night before. I can’t say enough how much I enjoyed this time, this getting to know the other 10 finalists, and how each of them were equally deserving of the Teacher of the Year award.

As the morning grew short, my interview time drew closer. Before I knew it, I was sitting on the sofa outside the interview room, waiting to be called in. By this time, I had crossed the point of no return. The nervousness was gone, replaced by an excitement stemming from a realization that long awaited interview was right in front of me. Regardless of outcome, the process was drawing to a close. And then it was time.

Gwen Rudney, the Teacher of the Year Committee Chairperson, brought me into the large interview room. Tables formed a large rectangle in the room. On three sides sat the 22 members of the selection panel. The interviewee’s chair sat on the empty end of the rectangle. My first impression of the group was that they were all smiling. Amazingly, there were no intimidating stares, dark robes, or ominous devices of torture. Before I knew it, I was answering questions that spanned a wide range of educational issues, most of them centering on my educational career and my thoughts on education. The selection panel was so appreciative, so affirming, and so genuinely interested in what I had to say that any residue of nervousness I felt before the interview was washed away in their enthusiasm. They made the 30-minute interview one of the most enjoyable half hours of my teaching career. Several of the other finalists felt that the “interview” should be renamed “dialog” to give a better impression of what actually happens in the room, and I would generally agree. There were some challenging questions, of course, but by and large, “dialog” might be a better way to describe my time with the selection panel: it was fun. I should also add that time flew during the interview; the 30 minutes felt like ten minutes.

I’m not going to discuss specific questions, as the intent of the interview is to get spontaneous answers, and putting down questions here would hurt the process next year. However, out of the kindness of my heart in helping next year’s finalists, I have decided to spill the beans on one question. By doing this, I’ll give future finalists something to prepare for as their interview draws near. Please keep in mind the risks I am taking in giving away such highly classified information.

Here is one of the questions: Could you tell us a little bit about what you did in Japan?

There you go. I’m fairly certain that every finalist gets asked that question, so now you can prepare for your interview with a bit more confidence. Just don’t tell anyone at Education Minnesota that I gave away such top-secret information, ok?

After my interview, the finalists and the selection panel gathered for lunch in one of the hotel restaurants. Seating was pre-arranged, and again, the event was an enjoyable hour talking with people who are passionate about education.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon at the hotel. My brother and sister-in-law had arrived from Connecticut, and I spent some time with them, as well as spending more time in the waiting room talking with the other finalists.

After the final interview ended, the selection panel met behind closed doors to determine the Teacher of the Year. While this went on, Doug Dooher, the Program Coordinator for the Teacher of the Year Program, ran an outstanding Media Training seminar for the finalists that helped orient us to some of the things to consider when interacting with the press. Before the Media Training session was half over, the panel had made their decision on the next Teacher of the Year, but that information is kept tightly guarded until the official announcement at the Sunday banquet.

Saturday evening, another brother and sister-in-law arrived from New Hampshire. My wife, my children, my brothers and sisters-in-law, and I had a wonderful dinner at a nearby restaurant. As I went to sleep at the Northland Inn on Saturday night, I felt relieved that the interview was behind me. I looked forward to catching up on sleep.

By this time, psychologically I was feeling good. I had given my best to the process. There is no loser in something like this. I was ecstatic to have been nominated. Making the semi-finals was sufficient honor for me. Being selected a finalist, getting to be part of the selection weekend, and getting to meet such wonderful people was an incredible experience. I went to sleep calm, knowing that I was content with any outcome the following day.

(Part III forthcoming)

This morning, I had the honor of giving the commencement address at the Ridgedale Alternative Program (RAP) in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. RAP is one of the several alternative learning centers that Intermediate District 287 administers.

An Alternative Learning Center (ALC) is generally a place where students come after they have had difficulties with traditional educational settings. At an ALC, students get smaller classes, individualized programs, and lots of interaction with teachers and staff. Graduates have overcome incredible obstacles and challenges in reaching commencement.

If you’d like, you can listen to the speech:
Learning to Bounce (MP3 format, 7.5MB, 13 minutes)

P.S. A special thanks to Eric Michelsen and the RAP staff for the invitation.

Technorati Tags: education, commencement speech, speech, alternative learning center, ALC, Minnesota teacher of the year, mp3, Mike Smart

A few people have asked to see the essays that I wrote for the Teacher of the Year application. They have been included in the official press release, but for the sake of easy access, I’m posting them here in PDF format. Clicking on the links below will allow you to save them to your computer.

Education Message

Philosophy of Teaching

Two quick comments…

The tricky part with these essays was fitting them onto two pages each. I ended up chopping out a lot of content. Over the course of the year, I hope to be posting more detailed thoughts on some of the topics mentioned in the essays.

On of the nice things about the Teacher of the Year application process is that it gets you to think in great detail about your philosophy of teaching and your educational message. These essays were written five months ago, at the beginning of the process. I would modify some areas if I were to write them now.

My grading backlog is gone! Every single paper I’ve gotten over the last three weeks is now graded and entered into the computer. To be honest, it didn’t take as long as I thought it would. I had been grading parts of stuff when I had some free time over the past three weeks, and a surprising amount of the material had sections already complete.

With that cleared, I now hope to start posting more in the blog about some of the events of the past three weeks, and finally answering the remainder of the regular mail that has come in.