Skip to main content

Identifying Teacher Challenges - Challenge Jam

 

Sometimes teachers who reach out for support are so overwhelmed that they don't know where to start. I am working with a teacher in that situation. She knows that she would benefit from some guidance, but she isn't quite sure what her area of "greatest need" is at the moment. To help her identify a starting point, I suggested we use a strategy from Jenny Magiera called a "Gripe Jam." (Read more about this activity here.) I modified it a little and called it a "Challenge Jam."

I created a template using Jamboard and shared it with the teacher. Then, I took her through the following steps:

  1. I had her share as many challenges as she could think of that are frustrating her right now. As she shared them, I wrote each one down on a separate sticky note.
  2. I asked her to rank the challenges from Most Frustrating to Least Frustrating. She moved sticky notes in a straight line from left to right as she identified the most frustrating problems.
  3. I asked her to rank the challenges from More People Affected to Fewer People Affected. She raised the challenges that affected more people and lowered those that affected fewer people.
  4. I asked her to circle the three challenges she was most passionate about solving. 
  5.  She chose the problem to focus on during this coaching cycle.
This was the first time I have tried this activity with a teacher, and I really enjoyed it! 

Things that went well:

  • I LOVE the conversation that we had as the teacher was ranking her challenges. Listening to her think through decisions out loud allowed me to gather so much valuable information about her thought process and her perceptions of her own challenges.
  • She really enjoyed the activity. As soon as I explained the steps, she said, "This is my kind of thinking!"
  • She seemed calmer and more confident after the activity. It seemed like identifying and organizing the challenges helped her feel more in control of the situation. 

Areas for improvement:

  • I didn't do a very good job explaining Step #3 when she was ranking challenges from More People Affected to Fewer People Affected. I need to explain more clearly that we need to keep the sticky notes in their order and in the straight line of frustration from left to right (from the previous step). 
  • I underestimated how long this could take. I felt like I was rushing her a little at the end because I had another meeting to get to. Next time I need to schedule more time.

Next Steps

We scheduled a time to meet next week. My goals for that meeting are:
  1. Better understand the challenge.
  2. Positively frame the challenge.
  3. Make sure the stated challenge really is the problem.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Week of School

We just wrapped up our first week of school! I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know our new 5th grade students! Here are some of the activities we did to start building our classroom culture and learn more about each other: "All About Me" Google Drawing Students learned how to use some of the basic features of Google Drawings by creating a Drawing about themselves. The basic requirements were that they include their name, a picture of themselves, and text/images that describe their personalities or interests. I created an example to give them an idea of what it could look like.  I used this activity last year, and I really enjoyed what my students created. However, I decided this year to give them more time to just play with and explore the tools in Google Drawing. I feel like this really paid off because students were able to discover how to use some of the tools and share with each other instead of just relying on me to show them how to use it.  ...
Post a Comment
Read more

#OneNewThing: Adobe Spark

This week I tried using Adobe Spark Video for the first time. I'm enrolled in Tony Vincent's ( @tonyvincent ) Classy Videos course, and our assignment this week was to create a narrated slideshow.  When you first log in to Adobe Spark , you can choose which type of product you want to create: I chose to create a video to persuade students and parents to attend our upcoming Back to School Night. Adobe Spark provides some templates for you to use, or you can choose to create your video from scratch.  I used the "Promote an Idea" template for my project. Once you have chosen your template, it's time to start creating! There are some basic menus inside of the video creator. These allow you to choose things such as layout, theme, and music.  You can also add narration to the slides by pressing the red button with the microphone icon at the bottom of each slide. I wrote up a brief "script" for each slide so that I wouldn't forge...
Post a Comment
Read more

Differentiating PD - Skill Checklists

In a previous blog post , I shared three areas where I want to improve when designing and leading PD sessions. One of those goals was the following: Try new strategies to differentiate and support individualized progression I want to share one new way I am trying to address this goal in an upcoming PD session for a group of first-year teachers. One of the things I was asked to do in this session was to help teachers learn and practice Google for Workspace skills that they will need in order to effectively plan for the first few weeks of school. As I began to plan for this PD, I reflected on the following challenges: These are brand-new teachers and I don't know what level of Google Workspace skills they already have I want to make sure the learning is meaningful, regardless of their current skill level I do not have enough time to show them everything they might need to know, so I want to leave them with a resource they can revisit when they need it I decided to create leveled ...
Post a Comment
Read more