National Conference on Differentiated InstructionJuly 15, 2013 - July 18, 2013

DF22 Bounce Back! Turning Mistakes & Failures into Priceless Life Lessons (Gr. 7–12)

Rick Wormeli

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D900‐DF22‐WUP‐62350.pdf 

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Rick Wormeli

SDE 2013

For further conversation about any of these topics:

Rick Wormeli rwormeli@cox.net

703-620-2447 Herndon, Virginia, USA (Eastern Standard Time Zone)

@Rickwormeli (Twitter)

We need a volunteer to come up to the

front and sing a beautiful song.

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- Risk - An activity one engages in for

which the outcome is uncertain.

Be clear: The amount of risk a student takes in a modern classroom is directly proportional to his sense of

strong relationship with the adult in charge.

It’s the same with teachers and principals.

Great Fodder for Risk-taking: “If I had been a kid in my class today, would I want to

come back tomorrow?” -- Elspeth Campbell Murphy

“Nothing ventured, something lost.” -- Roland Barth.

“The most extraordinary thing about a really good

teacher is that he or she transcends accepted educational

methods. Such methods are designed to help average

teachers approximate the performance of good teachers.”

-- Margaret Mead

“Most educators would continue to lecture on

navigation while the ship is going down.” -- James Boren

“The fellow who never makes a mistake takes

his orders from one who does.”

-- Herbert Prochnow

“I have learned throughout my life as a

composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits

of false assumptions, not my exposure to founts of

wisdom and knowledge.” -- Igor Stravinsky

“There are two mistakes one can make along

the road to truth -- not going all the way, and not

starting.” -- Buddha

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In the popular game, Hacky Sack, you’re not allowed to say, “Sorry,” “I’m sorry,” or any

other version thereof.

In highly effective classrooms,

failure is normal.

Worry, if it’s not.

“Whoppers” of Failure in the Classroom or Profession

Adams, William

Cavaletti, Anthony

Duch, Phuc

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Paradoxical Commandments • People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.

Love them anyway.

• If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior

motives. Do good anyway.

• If you are honest, some people will laugh at you. Be

honest anyway.

• If you speak out for what you believe, people may make

fun of you. Speak out anyway.

• Think big and small-minded people will sneer at you.

Think big anyway.

Paradoxical Commandments • What you spend years building may be destroyed

overnight. Build anyway.

• People are crying out for help but may attack you if you

help them. Help them anyway.

• Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing

anyway.

• The world loves top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs

anyway.

• Give the world the best you have, and most people will

not even notice. Give this miraculous, fragile

• world the best you have. Anyway.

EMORY AUSTIN (Copyrighted 1996 All rights reserved.

Used by Special Permission)

(Adapted)

It is counter-cultural, subversive,

to differentiate instruction .

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The best teachers of my own children have been the ones who respect the school’s system, but parted from it as necessary in order to teach my child.

Paramount:

In order for someone to accept feedback or take a risk with a new idea, they must first admit what he was doing could be improved, or was less effective than he thought it was. Example: Baby Mortality Rate in Impoverished region

q

c d

p

Which letter

does not

belong, and

why?

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Writer and educator, Margaret

Wheatley, is correct:

“We can’t be creative unless we’re willing to be confused.”

Grades are

compensation.

communication.

Cultivate Personal Creativity.

Seriously, it’s just as vital as content expertise, professional behavior, and maintaining proper records.

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Risky Teacher/Principal Actions that are Worth Doing

• Deviate from the program here and there as necessary for

students’ success, but translate what you’re doing into the

language of the district so you can keep your job.

• Tell those questioning your deviation from the establish

program that you’re doing a “pilot.” People get panicked

by permanence.

• Connect with someone you respect and trust. Sharing

your reasoning with him or her will strengthen your arguments and fortitude to do the right thing.

Risky Teacher/Principal Actions that are Worth Doing

• Risk-taking and reform happen easiest and work best in

schools in which teachers participate in national

conversations.

• Invite Devil’s Advocate, Socrates, “Yes, but…” questions

to let folks to get answers to specific concerns, but also

facilitate an equal number of “Yes, and…” responses in

which colleagues improve or extend ideas.

• Give yourself a daily failure budget. First year teachers,

for example, are allowed 12 whopping mistakes per day.

If it’s less than 12 on any given day, they came in under

budget – Celebrate! If over 12, wallow in self-pity for one

hour after school, then get back to work. Budget

allotment resets to 12 each day.

Michael Jordan Nike video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.

I’ve lost almost 300 games.

Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the

game-winning shot, and missed.

I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life.

And that is why… I succeed.”

And what’s a successful batting average in baseball?

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F.A.I.L. First Attempt in Learning

Mr. DaVore’s Do-Over By David Puckett

“Risk-Taking” Segment

From, “How Difficult Can This Be? The F.A.T. City Workshop” video

by Rick Lavoie

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The professional model for ALL professions is: work, receive feedback, revise

according to feedback, work more, receive feedback, revise according to feedback, work

more,

and continue.

Two Ways to Begin Using Descriptive Feedback:

• “Point and Describe” (from Teaching with Love & Logic, Jim Fay, David Funk)

• “Goal, Status, and Plan for the Goal”

1. Identify the objective/goal/standard/outcome

2. Identify where the student is in relation to the goal (Status)

3. Identify what needs to happen in order to close the gap

Positive Mindset/Culture for Failures

in Middle School

• Academic struggle is virtuous, not weakness.

• To recover from failure teaches more than being labeled for failure ever could teach.

• Failure can teach us in ways consistent success cannot.

• Initial failure followed by responsive teaching that helps students revise thinking results in greater long-term retention of content.

• “The expert in any field is the one who has made the most mistakes in that field.” (Neils Bohr)

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Carol Dweck (2007) distinguishes between students with a fixed intelligence mindset who believe that intelligence is innate and unchangeable and those with a growth mindset who believe that their achievement can improve through effort and learning…Teaching students a growth mindset results in increased motivation, better grades, and higher achievement test results.”

(p.6, Principal’s Research Review, January 2009, NASSP)

Remember:

There is a big difference between what we hold people accountable for demonstrating during the learning cycle versus what we hold people accountable for demonstrating once they are fully certified, i.e. finished the learning cycle and received passing scores on valid assessments.

Recovering in full from a failure teaches more than being labeled for failure ever could teach.

It’s a false assumption that giving a student an “F” or wagging an admonishing finger from afar builds moral fiber, self-

discipline, competence, and integrity.

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Re-Do’s & Re-Takes: Are They

Okay?

More than “okay!”

After 10,000 tries,

here’s a working

light bulb. ‘Any

questions?

Thomas Edison

From Youtube.com:

Dr. Tae Skateboarding (Ted Talk)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHfo17ikSpY

It takes doing a task (or revisiting content) about two dozen times to get to an 80% proficiency level with that skill or content in long-term memory.

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Teacher Action

Result on Student

Achievement

Just telling students # correct and

incorrect

Negative influence on

achievement

Clarifying the scoring criteria Increase of 16 percentile points

Providing explanations as to why

their responses are correct or

incorrect

Increase of 20 percentile points

Asking students to continue

responding to an assessment until

they correctly answer the items

Increase of 20 percentile points

Graphically portraying student

achievement

Increase of 26 percentile points

-- Marzano, CAGTW, pgs 5-6

A Perspective that Changes our Thinking:

“A ‘D’ is a coward’s ‘F.’ The student failed, but you didn’t have enough

guts to tell him.”

-- Doug Reeves

• A

• B

• C

• I, IP, NE, or NTY

Once we cross over into D and F(E) zones, does it really matter? We’ll do the same two things: Personally investigate and take corrective action

I = Incomplete

IP = In Progress

NE = No Evidence

NTY = Not There Yet

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If we do not allow students to re-do work, we deny the growth mindset so vital to student maturation, and we are

declaring to the student:

• This assignment had no legitimate educational value.

• It’s okay if you don’t do this work.

• It’s okay if you don’t learn this content or skill.

None of these is acceptable to the highly accomplished, professional educator.

Helpful Procedures and Policies

for Re-Do’s and Re-Takes

• Always, “…at teacher discretion.”

• Don’t hide behind the factory model of schooling that perpetuates curriculum by age, perfect mastery on everyone’s part by a particular calendar date.

• As appropriate, students write letters explaining what was different between the first and subsequent attempts, and what they learned about themselves as learners.

• Re-do’s and re-takes must be within reason, and teachers decide what’s reasonable.

• Identify a day by which time this will be accomplished or the grade is permanent, which, of course, may be adjusted at any point by the teacher.

• With the student, create a calendar of completion that will help them accomplish the re-do. If student doesn’t follow through on the learning plan, he writes letters of apology. There must be re-learning, or learning for the first time, before the re-assessing.

• Require the student to submit original version with the re-

done version so you and he can keep track of his development.

• If a student is repeatedly asking for re-doing work, something’s up. Investigate your approach and the child’s situation.

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• C, B, and B+ students get to re-do just as much as D and F students do. Do not stand in the way of a child seeking excellence.

• If report cards are due and there’s not time to re-teach before re-assessing, record the lower grade, then work with the student in the next marking period, and if he presents new evidence of proficiency, submit a grade-change report form, changing the grade on the transcript from the previous marking period.

• Reserve the right to give alternative versions and ask follow-up questions to see if they’ve really mastered the material.

• Require parents to sign the original attempt.

• It’s okay to let students, “bank,” sections of the assessment/assignment that are done well.

• No-re-do’s the last week of the grading period.

• Replace the previous grade with the new one, do NOT average them together.

• Sometimes the greater gift is to deny the option.

• Choose your battles. Push for re-doing the material that is transformative, leveraging, fundamental.

Motivation is doing what you are already capable of doing, not trying to do something for which you lack the tools.

Consider…

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Characteristics of Motivational Classrooms (Rick Lavoie, The Motivation Breakthrough, 2007)

1.Relevance

2.Control

3.Balance of Support and Challenge

4.Social Interaction

5.Safety and Security

Motivational Forces (Needs):

To Belong To be Acknowledged

To be Independent To Control

To be Important To Assert

To Know

Deciding to Take the Risk • Am I making this choice with the hope that no

one will find out?

• How will I look back on this choice ten years

from now?

• Am I doing to others what I would want done to

me?

• If < insert name of someone admired > were in

the same situation, what would he or she do?

• If everyone were about to do what I’m about to

do, would it be a positive thing -- Is that the kind

of world in which I want to live?

Ask what a

respected

colleague or

leader would do.

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Ropes Course Games

Ropes Course Games

Electric Fence (Getting over triangle fence without touching)

Spider Web (Pass bodies through “webbing” withot ringing the attached bells)

Group Balance (2’X2’ platform on which everyone stands and sings a short song)

Nitro-glycerin Relocation (previous slide)

Trust Falls (circle style or from a chair)

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Negating Students’ and Colleagues Incorrect Responses While Keeping Them in the Conversation

• Act interested, “Tell me more about that…”

• Empathy and Sympathy: “I used to think that, too,” or “I understand how you could conclude that…”

• Alter the reality:

-- Change the question so that the answer is correct

-- That’s the answer for the question I’m about to ask

-- When student claims he doesn’t know, ask, “If you DID know, what would you say?”

Negating Students’ Incorrect Responses and While Them in the Conversation

• Affirm risk-taking

• Allow the student more time or to ask for assistance

• Focus on the portions that are correct

“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man,

but he is braver five minutes longer.”

- Emerson

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“Courage is not the absence of

fear. It’s the judgment that something

else is more important than that fear.”

-- Ambrose Redmoon, rock band manager

in the 1960’s. Oh yeah, he was a quadriplegic as well.

What do we judge as so important,

it trumps our fear of rejection, failure,

and questioning from colleagues,

parents, administration?

Bold Actions and Policy Changes I am Pursuing

Even though I Might Fail:

• Remove Honor Roll. It has little to do with students’,

advanced or not, academic achievement and

personal maturation.

• End averaging of grades.

• Build and use full ropes initiatives courses on

school property.

• Put vocational training back into middle schools.

• Be open to students skipping grade levels.

• Train all teachers in gifted education so as to meet

advanced needs, at least to some degree, in

regular education classrooms, if necessary.

• Change the way teachers see their role in students’

learning: Back end just as important, if not more so,

than front end.

• Turn middle schools into true middle schools, not

junior versions of high school, a.k.a. junior high.

• Start all middle and high schools at 9:30 in the

morning or later.

• Denying students the tools of their daily reality

hastens our irrelevance and negates all claims

we’re preparing students for the working world.

Invite students to use personal technologies in the

classroom and teach them to use them ethically.

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Consider how personal

technology is changing the

way our students do

things.

We’ve entered a 24-7

work cycle. Official

homework as we know it

will soon fade.

• Adjust the school’s master schedule to

support best practices; don’t sacrifice best

practices to support the master schedule.

• Mandate all students and teachers get

residential, outdoor education experiences

of a week or more

• Revise our thinking in light of new evidence

– be open to correction.

• Pass a law that we cannot take students

out of P.E., fine/performing arts, and tech

classes to double-up on their math or

reading remediation for state exams.

• Assign a teacher to be the school’s official

grant coordinator. ‘One period off every day

to research and write grants.

• Differentiate teachers’ professional

development

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From “At Work in the Differentiated Classroom” (ASCD video):

Jesse, Writer’s Voice, and Barber’s Adagio

“Most of the time I’m a leader, but sometimes I have to be the boss.”

-- quote from a

highly accomplished

middle level principal

What goes unachieved in students because we chose to be politically safe?

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Niagra Falls….

Great Resources

• Covey, Steven. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,

Simon and Schuster Publishers, New York, 1989

• Fluegelman, Andrew, Editor. The New Games Book,

Headlands Press Book, Doubeday and Company, New

York, 1976.

• Henton, Mary. (1996) Adventure in the Classroom,

Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt

• Kriegel, Robert. If it ain’t Broke, Break it! And Other

Unconventional Wisdom for a Changing Business World,

Warner Books, New York, 1991

• Newton, Cathy Griggs. Risk It! Empowering Young

People to Become Positive Risk Takers in the Classroom

& Life, Incentive Publications, Inc. , Nashville, TN 1996

ISBN 0-86530-346-0

• Popkin, Dr. Michael. Active Parenting of Teens, Active

Parenting, Inc., 810 Franklin Court, Suite B, Marietta, GA

30067

• Rohnke, K. (1984). Silver Bullets. Dubuque, Iowa:

Kendall Hunt.

• Rohnke, K. & Butler, S. (1995). QuickSilver. Dubuque,

Iowa: Kendall Hunt.

• Rohnke, K. (1991). The Bottomless Bag Again.

Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt.

• Rohnke, K. (1991). Bottomless Baggie. Dubuque, Iowa:

Kendall Hunt.

• Rohnke, K. (1989). Cowstail and Cobras II. Dubuque,

Iowa: Kendall Hunt.

• Wormeli, Rick. Meet Me in the Middle: Becoming an

Accomplished Middle Level Teacher, Stenhouse

Publishers, 2001, ISBN 1-57110328-7

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New

from

Dr.

Debbie

Silver!

‘Didn’t fail at something today?

You’re not trying hard enough.

Our students deserve teachers who fail at initial attempts and learn from the experience.