Spring. The spring brings with it rain, blooming flowers, and new life. In the classroom, students are growing at incredible rates, friendships are deepening, and testing begins. Spring also brings the time of job applications, interviews, and staffing changes.

In a recent conversation with a colleague who is applying for new positions, we had the chance to brainstorm possible interview questions and responses. One question/prompt was to identify the top three values in the classroom and the school. Together we thought of the following:

• Safety for all - physically, emotionally, psychologically, ...
• A collaborative school community.
• High quality teaching and learning.

Our initial response was child safety but we expanded it further to safety for all because everyone, every learner at school needs to feel safe - children and adults. Our conversation was such a rich and deep experience for both of us. It brought out our beliefs, passions, and ideas.
As I thought further about the conversation, this blog post came to life. We must Maslow before we Bloom.

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who was best known for his theory called Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a motivational theory in psychology. Maslow’s theory is that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. In his five-tier model of human needs, Maslow called the four bottom levels of the pyramid “deficiency needs.” A person does not feel anything if these four levels are met, but experiences great anxiety if they are not. The bottom four levels include eating, drinking, sleeping, safety needs, social needs, and ego needs (such as self-esteem and recognition). The fifth level of the pyramid is considered a “growth need” because it enables a person to work towards a person’s fullest potential / self actualization. Once a person has met the deficiency needs, s/he can turn their attention to self-actualization.

Benjamin Bloom was an American educational psychologist who was best known for his classification of learning objectives known as Bloom’s taxonomy. Bloom’s taxonomy is a set of three hierarchical models - cognitive, affective, and sensory domains - used to classify learning objectives of complexity and specificity. The cognitive model is the one educators are most familiar with and is broken into six levels of objectives or levels of understanding: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation. Bloom’s taxonomy is definitely used as a teaching tool to help teachers and curriculum writers carefully plan their lessons, assignments, texts, and questions.

We must Maslow before we Bloom. As educators, we need to ensure that our students’ sense of safety and other basic needs are met before we can make significant impact on their learning. Students need to feel respected, cared for, valued, and safe - physically, emotionally, psychologically, … These are basic needs of any individual and a cornerstone to meaningful learning. Throughout the years, one of the many influential phrases that come up in conversations is “students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” We need to make school, the playground, anywhere kids are, a safe place for them to be. We must Maslow before we Bloom.

We must Maslow before we Bloom applies to learners of all ages as well. It absolutely applies to adult learners. Any school leader, district administrator, coach, grade level team member, PLC member, … must ensure that the basic needs of all learners are recognized and met. Everyone - teachers, paraprofessionals, specialists, administrative assistants, custodians, parents, relatives, ... - must be respected, valued, heard, recognized, celebrated, supported, ... I remember from my experience in Lesson Study groups through the Silicon Valley Math Initiative (SVMI), norms were always established and addresses at the beginning of every meeting. Some may think the time it takes to review norms cuts into the academic discourse but without it, the conversations are definitely not as respectful, rich, and meaningful. The time invested in establishing and reviewing norms is invaluable. In order to ensure a greater level of productivity, joy, happiness, and collaboration in the work between adult learners, we must attend to everyone’s basic needs. We must Maslow before we Bloom.

​“In teaching … ‘You can’t do the Bloom stuff until you take are of the Maslow stuff.’” - Alan E. Beck
​
What are you doing/will you do to Maslow for your students and colleagues?

One thing you can count on teachers to do is engage in ongoing professional development. Whether willingly by reading professional books, attending conferences, or forming connections on social media, or sometimes unwillingly by attending district mandated professional learning sessions, ongoing learning is a part of an educator's life.

I have really enjoyed the self-initiated professional learning I've done so far this 2017 year. Engaging in numerous Twitter chats is always on the top of the list. I have truly grown through my connections with other professionals on chats like #TOSAchat, #tlap, #leadupchat, #ditchbook, #globaledchat, #whatisschool, #satchatwc, #moreedu, #teachmindful, #JoyfulLeaders, #eduar, #fitnessedu, and #caedchat. Below is a tweet that speaks deeply about the benefits of being on Twitter.

Professional reading has also been a great source of learning. One book in particular that I read (and wrote a blog post about) was Trevor MacKenzie's Dive into Inquiry. It's so great to read the book that affirmed my philosophies and beliefs, gave me new insights into the process of student inquiry, and inspired me to think of ways to support the teachers I work with. A few titles that are in my pile of professional books to read next include Launch by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani, Pure Genius by Don Wettrick, Deliberate Optimism by Debbie Silver, Jack C. Berckemeyer, and Judith Baenen, and Why?: What Makes Us Curious by Mario Livio.

I have also had the pleasure and privilege of attending many conferences as a participant and some as a presenter. Recent ones that stand out include the California STEAM Symposium (although not in 2017 - October 2016 - it definitely stands out to me), EdTechTeacher's Summer Institute, Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative's Summer Coaching Institute, plenty of edcamps, MDUSD's STEM & EdTech Symposium, SCCOE's STEAM Symposium, and the recent California Teacher's Summit. I am looking forward to attending this year's Fall CUE in Napa, Region 5 Science Community of Practice at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and hopefully present at the California STEAM Symposium in December.

There are indeed countless options for educators to engage in professional learning. Twitter chats are available everyday of the week, and there are new ones popping up all the time. The choices of professional books are increasing each week. I know my list continues to grow on a weekly basis. And, of course, if you're fortunate to attend conferences, you will be amazed by the level of professional development through the sessions, conversations, and professional connections.

What are some of your favorite Twitter chats, professional books, and conferences?

Learning takes hard work, understanding, perseverance, making mistakes, and learning from mistakes.

I had the pleasure of supporting two second grade teachers at Fairmeadow Elementary School this week with the use of SVMI's Problem of the Month packets to practice the 8 Mathematical Practices. During week 1 of this Problem of the Month packet, I led the students through Level A in a Number Talk format. Students were able to construct viable arguments and share the strategies they used. It was great to see the students in both second grade classes exercise Math Practice #1 - Make Sense of Problems and Persevere in Solving Them throughout their time working on the levels of their packets.

Last week, I continued supporting the teachers with their SVMI Problem of the Month packet with the project of creating posters to share our thinking. Of course, students are used to sharing their solutions. Most math sheets, activities, packets ask students for the answer and to explain their solution. A great benefit to SVMI's Problem of the Month packets is how the problems are written. Many packets and their levels have been carefully written to allow for multiple solutions, causing students to truly justify their thinking - fostering Math Practice numbers 1, 2, and 3. Students showed great perseverance with making sense of problems, deciding how to attack the problems, constructing viable arguments with clear explanations, and checking their work for labels and clarity.

Explanation Poster
In our activity, I shared the concept of an explanation poster where students share their thinking, explanation, and strategies. This is an area that I've grown as an instructional coach. In previous years, I called them Solution Posters, but realized having a slight name change to explanation poster shifts the focus from the solution to the explanation. This was definitely evident this year as I observed students putting more of their focus on providing clear explanations.

Status Poster
In that session I also introduced the concept of a status poster. The second grade students were quick to understand the purpose of a status poster. "It's to show my progress." "The poster helps people know what I've done so far." In our discussion, we added that showing a status poster allows classmates and other learners to either get ideas from your work or offer ideas for your next steps. It was really great to see students understand the value of the this process - the value of growth mindset and the iterative process.

Below are pictures of the second grade students from Susan Hoff's and Melissa Hinkle's classes creating their explanation and status posters of SVMI's Problem of the Month packet. Scroll down beyond this first set of pictures to see the work from this week.

This week, we concluded our month's work with SVMI's Problem of the Month packet by sharing our explanation and status posters through a gallery walk. After introducing/reminding students of the process of a gallery walk (the process of admiring the work of the artists/mathematician and being a detective to understand the work behind the piece), I shared the process of providing feedback to classmates on sticky notes. For the second graders, we discussed the process of sharing compliments and questions. When discussing compliments, we talked about the importance of being specific with our positive feedback so our classmates know exactly what they did well, instead of just "Great job." We then moved onto the value of asking questions about the work instead of sharing negative criticism. With examples and sentence stems, we talked about the impact and difference between, "You're wrong," or "You didn't do your math correctly," and "Did you double check your calculations," or "I could understand this better if you included labels." It was definitely an important discussion and setup for our gallery walks. Below are pictures of the compliments and questions from the students to each other.

It's been an amazing week being around so many professionals and highly motivated educators this week at the Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative's Coaching Institute. This was SVMI's 16th annual coaching institute and my fifth year participating in this fabulous professional development event.

In previous years I attended breakout sessions that focused on Lesson Study. Palo Alto Unified School District had quite a large group of teachers attend the institute that worked collaboratively on Lesson Study and Number Talks. I really enjoyed those summers and the impact the things I learned had on me, my teaching, and, ultimately, my students.

This summer I had an equally inspiring experience. This summer, as I began my new role as a match coach/TOSA, I attended the "Content Coaching" breakout group. It was great to be with other math coaches all around the Bay Area to explore the intricacies and nuances of coaching structures, communication styles, and mindsets.

Some highlights from this year's institute include:
-The activities with the Problem of the Month(s) were, as always, powerful, enlightening, and challenging. Participants of the institute got to work on the new POMs of 2015 titled, "Get to the Point" and "Ride Around." I heard similar comments from people who were familiar with POM and those who were new to those types of problems and the format suggested for POM. "Each level provides challenge for all students at all levels." "I really appreciate the gallery walk experience." "The chance to make a status poster was really freeing. It helped give us a chance to show what we know right now and not worry about having the problem solved with an explanation yet."
-Language matters. In our whole-group gatherings, we explored the importance of language for all students. Are we using language in our speech, directions, and/or word problems that are accessible for ALL students? Are we mindful of the intricacies and nuances of our language and idioms that often leads to misunderstandings and misconceptions in our students?
-Mindsets. No matter how much anyone has explored mindsets it's always powerful to examine mindsets again (even if you're Carol Dweck because she's most likely continuing her research on mindset). In the whole-group gatherings, we discussed language and The Power of Yet. This is a link to Carol Dweck's TEDx Talk in November 2014. The following is the embedded video from YouTube.

-Models. We examined the use and power of models to improve decisions. Modeling links mathematics and statistics to everyday life, work, and decision-making. 

-Five Productive Talk Moves: 
Revoicing
Asking students to restate someone else's thinking
Do you agree or disagree and why?
Would someone like to add on?
Using wait time.
-Language coaches can use that encourages reflection.
-Analysis of the roles of a coach as a collaborator, a mentor, and a leader.

If you have never attended a SVMI Coaching Institute, I highly recommend it. It is a very powerful professional development opportunity.