Podcast episode 4: Involving students & teachers alike

Welcome to the podcast Clue for Teachers and Teams. I will share practical tips and tricks for implementing Clue your organization within your team, or if you're a teacher. In your lesson. Let's go

In this episode. I want to talk with you about variation and and ownership for two things that are involved. When you talk about talk about involving both students, teachers and students into your organization.

So what do teachers need to feel involved? And part of the organizations and at the same time, what does students need in order to feel, you know, and as if they are part of your lesson is if they're motivated to work for you. They're so important going on. The key here, the key concepts here that I want to talk with you about is making sure that they all feel involved in some way.

And there are various things you can do to do that. And in all cases it increased motivation to be willing to be part of the organization. I personally am bored very easily and it's one of the reasons I always started doing other things next to teaching and is also the reason I always start with a lot of things but never finish them because as soon as I've got something, I did something the first time I'm already bored.

I want to do the next thing. I'm really bad at really finishing projects. I'm really good at starting new ones like this podcast. And that's why whenever I start with new projects and I'm afraid I might not be able to finish it, I need to make sure that it's something big and others are part of a team. So I can't quit when I feel like, okay, this is enough, I want to move on.

For example, organizing musical, you know, that that's something you can stop with in the so you really have to finish that anyway. That that's something that I need. I needed variation, I need change and both in the way that I train teachers and I really like what I do right now. So both teach and give training to teachers and really, you know, the created a very nice creation in my life where I inspire others, help out others, and at the same time also still teach bit and share what I learned from those workshops with my students and vice versa.

So I can really, you know, it's a bit of a best of both worlds and as a teacher, I think it's the same. You want some variation, you need some kind of ownership and variation in what you do in order to actually feel like you are part of your organization. So I want to talk about that first, really making sure how do you as a teacher feel like you're part of the organization?

And that I also want to talk about how as a teacher, you can make sure your students are more involved in the lesson. I'll give you some ideas on that. So first of all, I already mentioned them. I wanted to talk about two things ownership and variation, because those two are, in my opinion, key to making sure that students are motivated and used teacher as well.

If you do not feel any ownership, if you do not feel like well, you are part of the progress, your opinion is very valuable and people listen to you and you just do what you're told. You will be less motivated. So my question to you as a coordinator or coach is when is the last time that you sat down with teachers in your team and actually listen to what their needs are to what they want?

Is there something they want to develop? Is there something they want to learn? Is it something they want to improve? Is there something that they would like to talk with you about that they have been struggling with for a while? Often team meetings are about what a coordinator or a school leader wants to talk about and less about what teachers want to talk about.

So that's just something that I want you to put out there. When is the last time you sat down with teacher and you said, okay, let's talk about what's the one thing that you would like to change or improve or what's the one thing you want to learn and how are you going to, you know, go about that?

Of course. Yes. And vision element of the school. School leaders need to have a vision and talk about that and maybe get those early adapters along and eventually get those. But I also noticed that a lot of school leaders are a bit like me. Ooh, shiny new object syndrome, you know. So they switch to something else within one or two years without really solidifying the new things within their school.

I'm not sure if you recognize that, but it's something that I see around me whenever I teach at schools that there is a lot of things going on in education and there's always new things that you can implement and there's for some reason less focus on actually solidifying that within your organization and making it part of the process and making it part of a more long term planning instead of just a one off workshop or a one off training session.

So do you teach? You feel like they have enough challenge? You can go with challenges going on. When you talk about variation, same question is there enough challenges? Is there enough different things you can do or are you just going through the motions or is it just, you know, I do the same every day or do you want to do something else?

And I think as a teacher is important to talk about that as well. So. So do you feel motivated? If not, what's the reason? It could be ownership, it could be variation, could be something else. These are things that might be interesting to talk about now as a teacher, the same applies to your students. If your students are just going through the motions, not just following what you tell them to do.

I'm not saying they will be less motivated, but I think there are things you can do to increase motivation when you talk about ownership, you do not have to be the one selecting all the homework, selecting all the work you need to do. You do not have to be the one to give all the information they need. They can find information themselves, they can read texts.

They can explain things to each other. I've had students explain new things in class where I just sit back and students did the explanation. They prepared a paragraph and they explain it to other students, and all I needed to make sure was off was to make to to check if it made sense. And the students understood. And sometimes I would just ask one or two questions to make sure that the important things were mentioned.

But generally speaking, students were quite capable of even explaining rather difficult math topics to other students. But you can also make it somewhat easier, for example, with activities like Read the question or Choice Board, those are activities where students well get to create things for each other and get to a bit of that ownership. And I receive a lot of sleep back away from those kind of activities that you really like doing that because they feel like they're in control instead of following what teacher says.

And of course, if you're providing them scaffolding, you make sure that there's a structure there. Students will be able to do that. And so that those are just some ideas that you can do to make sure that that ownership element and when it comes to creation. Well, I think I talked about this before and I switch lot of time.

I switch with a others activities in my lesson. So I am if I talk, if I explain something, I make students timely, giving them that ownership again, but also making sure that there's no variation going on in my lesson. I don't want to talk for more than 10 minutes. By now you've probably realized I talk fast. I also like talking a lot.

That's why I record this podcast. So I need to make sure that I get you no limit on that. And it also means that I switch every ten or 15 minutes with something in my lesson where I would switch from an opener to an instruction moment or a informing moment or and back to in applying stage where I set them to do some work, where of course I provide some kind of activity to make sure that they are working.

So we're reflecting stage back to you in applying stage chatter, just constantly switching that around. Also sometimes individual silent work. You know, we're I think in every lesson you can also have moments where they work in silence. I did a questionnaire with my my students last week and I always ask them to sit in groups and work together.

And I teach them how to do that. And I cancel that process. And one of the students anonymously. But I think I know who it is. FIELD In that she prefers working alone because there's so much rumor going on in the group. And for that student working more in a more isolated part of the lesson might really work out.

So it's something I need to explore with her to see how things are going. If she would sit alone or maybe pair up instead of completely alone. But that's that that's, you know, that variation. If you can also have a lesson, it doesn't always have to be a running around. For some reason people think that's clean. It's all about constantly running around, standing up, etc. And sure, you can do that.

But there's also moments of silence in my few lessons. Students also have to do some active thinking, and active thinking doesn't mean actively running around. It means that they think for themselves, and it might mean that they have to work on their own for five or 10 minutes or maybe longer. Obviously, I'm not in any way saying that you have to make sure that students are silent for half an hour, but you get what I mean.

I hope so. That's just my idea. On on ownership and variation. Two things that I think are important to make sure that both teachers and your team as a unit in your lesson feel involved. Part of either the organization or the lesson. And I noticed whenever I did this as a coordinator, I would find that teachers are more motivated to to to discuss things with me if I would invite them to, to discuss challenges that I face in my teaching or in my organization.

And I would ask them, okay, can you please let me know what you think of this and not make it to open? Because when we're not organized as sparring sessions, no one would show up. But if I ask individual teachers to just give me their opinion about something, they were quite often quite willing to do that just sit down with these are 10 minutes.

And of course, at the same time I would give them the responsibility to to give their opinion and they would feel valuable. They would feel skills. L huge part of the organization. And of course it also means you need to do something with that. If you don't follow up, they might say, Well, next time I won't help out because you don't do anything with what I say.

But that's, I think, crucial to any organization and especially to bilingual education in the Netherlands, which is a niche, of course. And if you fire teachers, I'm involved with a small team you already have, then you might face challenges where you have all this team not really wanting to do what you want them to do. So then you sit down and talk about them with and talk with them about this.

This is something I wanted to share. So make sure you give the teachers ownership, you talk with them about variation, what things do they want to do with their own creation and at work? But also students gives them ownership, gives them some things to do in class and variation enough in the lesson. So don't make them sit down and listen to you for over an hour.

I know there are teachers who can do that. I once had a teacher myself who? Well, I think if I'm if he would read the telephone book, I would still find it interesting. Some teachers just have that gift that if they talk, you listen and it's just that intriguing. I don't have that gift. And so after 10 to 15 minutes, I need to make sure something switches.

Also, the reason these podcasts are not much longer because I might just deviate from the topic too much as I make these podcast episodes any longer. That's it for today. I hope you like this. Let me know what you think of this. Let me know if you have any activities that you do in your lesson that make sure students are more involved or more.

A few bit of an ownership there. And if you're a coordinator or a coach, let me know what do you do to make sure that teachers feel like they're part of your organization? Do you always ask them what they want or do you just tell them, Oh, this is what we're going to do? It's a bit of a mean question to ask maybe, but I'm just asking it to check with you, checking with you, and see how things are going.

As always, good luck with your clear lessons and your organization. Looking forward to, well, sharing more information and the next next podcast.