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In Your Corner, Student Learning
Shifting Into Cruising Gear: Five “Gauges” to Check
The process of driving a car involves the performance of multiple tasks and the monitoring of several processes. Adjusting the seat and steering wheel, starting the car, shifting into gear, and guiding the car onto the street and merging with traffic are keys to safely and successfully beginning a trip. Once we are underway, we shift our attention to monitor and adjust our speed, check to be certain that there are no warning lights to signal problems with oil pressure or water temperature and other key engine operations. We might even check the RPMs to ensure that the engine is not working too hard in relation to the speed of the car.
Starting a new school year shares some parallels. We need to start the year by performing multiple organizing tasks, engaging students in a variety of activities, and building initial momentum for learning. We want to get acquainted with our students and begin forming relationships. We need to introduce daily and ongoing routines. We also face the tasks of establishing expectations and previewing the learning journey ahead. Each of these activities and processes plays an important role in launching a successful year.
Now, a few weeks into the year, we can transition our attention as we shift into “cruising gear” to achieve adequate and sustainable momentum for the year. Not unlike driving a car, we need to continue to monitor and modify various elements and aspects of the learning and teaching process in response to how students are adjusting and finding their own “cruising pace.” Like attending to miles per hour, oil pressure, water temperature, and RPMs, there are at least five “gauges” for you to give your attention to as you approach optimum cruising levels.
The first gauge is evaluating how well students have accepted and are adjusting to routines. If you find that you frequently must remind students to follow a specific routine, or students seem resistant, you may need to step back and reteach the routine and explore with students the reasons for and benefits of its existence. You may also need to consider whether some routines need to be adjusted to ensure smoother implementation and better student cooperation. The goal is to have routines work well enough that students barely notice them as part of daily life so everyone’s attention can be focused on learning.
The second gauge is monitoring how well the class or classes are developing as a learning community. How healthy and strong are relationships that you have developed with students and that students have developed with each other? Is there a climate of trust and mutual respect? Are students comfortable working together and even asking each other for advice and assistance? Is the level of dependence students have on you appropriate, or do you need to nudge them toward more self-reliance? If you observe lagging development in any of these areas, now may be a good time to step back and consider what may be getting in the way of sustained momentum and what actions you may need to take.
The third gauge concerns how well students are adjusting to and maintaining the pace of learning. Students may struggle more this year than in the past, especially if they experienced remote learning for much of last year. In person learning often presents a faster pace than was experienced by many students in remote settings. Of course, you may also have students who are ready for and need a faster pace. Monitoring of this gauge can tell us if we need to consider more flexibility and differentiation in the pace of learning to meet the needs of students.
A fourth gauge is whether students are maintaining motivation and engagement in their learning. The beginning of the year typically features hope for a new beginning. Early activities may offer structure and reassurance that students find motivating. However, before long, students can become bored with learning tasks they do not find relevant and purposeful. They may disengage if they are not experiencing enough success to sustain momentum. If you hope to achieve and sustain desired cruising speed, you may need to inject some variety, take more time to help students see the importance and usefulness of what they are learning. You also need to find ways to help struggling students find areas of success and experience a level of hope necessary to maintain learning effort.
The fifth gauge focuses on maintaining connections with families. Once the year is underway, it can be easy to neglect the connections built with families as the year began. Yet, families can tell you much about how the year is unfolding for their children. Knowing about significant changes and challenges families may be experiencing can provide valuable insights to the behavior students demonstrate. Touching base with parents to share observations and invite information can make a big difference in maintaining momentum as the learning journey continues.
Like any trip, there may be twists and turns to negotiate and your cruising speed may have to be adjusted. However, keeping your eyes on the key gauges available can help to avoid major slowdowns and loss of momentum when you need it most.
In Your Corner, Leadership and Change Management
When Change Comes Calling: Four Choices We Can Make
The past 18 months have presented each of us with the need to adjust in our personal and professional lives. We may have confined our social interactions, modified our work arrangements, and made other accommodations in response to the pandemic. While we could not avoid the push and pull we experienced, we were able to choose how we would respond to and meet the challenges we faced and the vulnerability we experienced.
The choices we have made likely had a significant influence on how we have experienced the pandemic. Depending on our choices, we may have struggled, navigated the experience, or even thrived. Interestingly, this experience offers a useful example of the importance of how we respond to changing circumstances and environments. The choices we make can determine how well we find our way forward and emerge from the uncertainty and shifting currents of life.
To help us understand the choices available and the outcomes to which they might lead, we can divide our choice options into four general categories: seeking stability, practicing flexibility, embracing adaptability, and designing for agility. Let’s explore each of these responses to pressure for change and how they can support or undermine our personal and professional success.
When we seek stability in response to the press for change, we focus on creating consistency and predictability. Our response to the pressure to change is to hone our current skills, reinforce our “go to” practices, and rely on “tried and true” approaches. In short, we bet that what we normally do and how we typically behave will carry us through. While this approach can carry us when the pressure to change is light and temporary, it can significantly undermine our effectiveness and compromise our success when circumstances call for significant adjustments. In fact, our inability or unwillingness to adjust can erode our competence and confidence to the point where it threatens the survival of personal relationships and viability of our professional future.
A choice to practice flexibility in response to the press to change broadens our focus and leads us to consider and employ the full array of strategies, approaches, and tools we possess, including practices we may have embraced in the past, but have since neglected. The broader the array of options, resources, and strategies we have developed and adopted, the better able we are to respond to the circumstances we face. This choice challenges us to use all that we currently possess to respond and meet the demands of the situation.
When we embrace adaptability, we move beyond what is familiar and has served us well in the past to ask ourselves what we need to learn and what skills will be required to respond to the press for change we are experiencing. We open ourselves to learning new strategies, creating new approaches, and adopting new tools. While often uncomfortable at first, this response to the need to change can be invigorating and growth evoking as we adapt our behavior, practices, and learning to move to a new level of success and satisfaction.
Choosing to design for agility shifts our position relative to the need to change from one of reaction to proactivity. Rather than waiting for pressure to fully develop and demand a response, this choice invites us to anticipate changes that may be necessary. We explore possibilities and develop strategies, approaches, and tools that will position us for success. This choice helps us to leverage change as an opportunity rather than a demand to which we must respond.
The application of the continuum of choices in the context of the pandemic may be obvious. Some people tried to ignore the need to change and cling to what used to be. Others shifted to other familiar strategies and practices hoping that they would be enough. Still others assessed the situation and embraced the learning necessary to succeed as they understood more about what was needed. Of course, there were those who saw the pandemic as an opportunity to imagine and create new strategies, invent new tools, and employ new approaches, and, as a result, thrived during uncertain and unpredictable times.
Nevertheless, it is important for us to recognize that this set of choices is available to us in myriad life circumstances. We are not always able to control the need to change, but we can choose how we will respond. The choices we make will likely determine our success and happiness during and well beyond the experience.
In Your Corner, Thinking Frames
Communication, In Your Corner
In Your Corner, Thinking Frames
Climate and Culture, In Your Corner
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Share your story and the tips you have for getting through this challenging time. It can remind a fellow school leader of something they forgot, or your example can make a difficult task much easier and allow them to get more done in less time. We may publish your comments.
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Artificial intelligence can do many things, but it cannot lead—not in a classroom, not in a school, not in a district. Leadership is a complex, uniquely human behavior, and now is the time to really, truly lead.
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