In this 10 Minute Tuesday, Eduplnaet21 speaks with PLUS Author Mike Anderson about best practices in leading a mindset shift as well - and applies that to curriculum mindset shifts. He ends with practical advice we all can learn about making changes in our own professional and personal lives!
Mike Anderson serves as a consultant in schools and districts throughout the US and internationally and is a speaker at national conferences including ASCD, NCTE, Literacy for All, and Learning & the Brain. A prolific writer, Mike has authored eight books. One of his more recent books, What We Say and How We Say It Matter hit best-seller status five months after its release. All of his books share two traits: they’re practical and readable–written with curious and busy teachers in mind. You will find the same is true of the Learning Paths in his Institute!
You can learn more about Mike’s Professional Learning Institutes on our website:
If you prefer to read a transcript of this conversation, it is available below.
Clare Coupe Scott, Eduplanet21:
Welcome, everybody, to Eduplanet21’s Ten Minute Tuesdays. These are conversations with experts in education. Today I'm lucky enough to be joined by Mike Anderson. He's an educational consultant, professional development leader, and author of many books, including his most recent release, Tackling the Motivation Crisis. Mike is also an Eduplanet21 Plus author. Mike, thanks so much for joining me today.
Mike Anderson, Leading Great Learning:
You're welcome, Clare. Glad to be here.
Clare Coupe Scott, Eduplanet21:
Recently we released a Curriculum Management Professional Learning Institute that's designed to help schools and districts kickstart the curriculum design process. Mike, you contributed to that institute with a focus on mindset shifts. So if it's okay with you, that's what I'd really like to talk with you about today.
Mike Anderson, Leading Great Learning:
Sounds good.
Clare Coupe Scott, Eduplanet21:
Let's start with an example. Can you talk about an instance or a way in which educators need to shift their mindset, specifically when it comes to curriculum?
Mike Anderson, Leading Great Learning:
Sure. I think one of the most damaging impacts of the standards movement that we've seen in the United States over the last 20 or 30 years has been the erosion of autonomy for teachers. I remember when I first started teaching at the elementary level back in the mid nineties, I almost had too much autonomy. I had to make up everything, I had to decide how I was going to teach reading and writing and math. And so as a young teacher, I really developed a skill set for designing lessons and designing units, but that's not the case anymore. And I think a lot of teachers are really used to being handed curricula. They're given a math program and told to follow it with fidelity.
So I think one of the big mindset shifts that teachers may need to make when starting to develop and design their own curricula is moving away from this mindset of compliance. “My job as a teacher is to do what the program says” to one of designer where they have some more autonomy and are actually in charge of designing and directing the learning kids are going to do.
Clare Coupe Scott, Eduplanet21:
And as you and I have talked about - utilizing those other things that they've been given just as resources instead of as “this is how I do it.”
Mike Anderson, Leading Great Learning:
Yes! To not have this sort of either/or mentality that either I follow the program as it is, or I throw the whole program out and do something different. Just the other day I was doing a demonstration lesson in a first grade classroom and the teacher wanted me to see she wanted to see a math lesson that involved choice and social emotional learning. But then she handed me, when I said, what are you working on? She sent me the teacher pages from the teacher math program and wanted me to do that. And I thought, well, no, we're not going to learn anything if I just do the lesson out of the book.
We could each do that. It's scripted right there. So instead I took that math lesson and redesigned it so that I incorporated some student choice and helped kids engage in some self reflection. And so I think it's that idea of taking what we've got and taking what we know and incorporating it into new units that can help us get away from that either/or mentality.
Clare Coupe Scott, Eduplanet21:
As you know, one of the things with Eduplanet21 and the schools and districts that we're working with is that sometimes they're also not only diving into curriculum work, but they also might be looking at a new approach or a new framework like Understanding by DesignⓇ. The groups that we work with often have a leadership team. And these are not just administrators, they're also teacher leaders that have been selected to lead this shift or this design process. So these leaders might need to shift their own mindset first before they can lead. So can you talk about how they can prepare themselves and kind of start that mindset shift for themselves before they lead the mindset Shift?
Mike Anderson, Leading Great Learning:
Sure. I think one of the things that might be really interesting and helpful for people is to actually try out what they're going to be leading for other people before they lead it. So if they're going to be designing a new unit, let's say, or they're going to be leading people as, they design a new unit to actually sit down and try that out themselves so that they understand what the process feels like. And they can see what some of the roadblocks might be and they can understand where anxieties might surface or questions might come up.
It's sort of like a friend of mine who teaches 8th grade said one of the best professional development experiments that he and his colleagues ever did was they actually did the short story assignment that they'd been giving to the 8th graders and they'd been giving the assignment for years. But when they tried it themselves, all of a sudden they realized how hard it was and it gave them a new understanding of how to facilitate it given what they'd experienced. So I think that's one thing leaders might do is put themselves in the position of lead learner. “I need to try this out and try it myself before I try and help facilitate it with others.”
Clare Coupe Scott, Eduplanet21:
I think that's a great point and I know many schools and districts do that, but not everybody does. So after they've started this mindset Shift themselves as they're getting into that now they're going to lead the organization into an overall mindset shift. And as I said, they might be using a new framework. So it may be a full shift from using a curriculum, like you said, where they've been given a program or been given a textbook, to writing their curriculum where they just have these resources and they're really kind of coming up with those ideas, those units themselves. What kind of suggestions do you have for leaders to lead and be an example in a mindset shift?
Mike Anderson, Leading Great Learning:
I think you kind of answered the question with the question, which is that they need to lead by example. We can't expect teachers to be any more engaged or joyful or creative or excited than the people who are leading the work. And I remember once I was doing work in a small district in Massachusetts, and there was a principal who was just joining the staff just as I was starting the work. So we were both joining the school at the beginning of the work that I was going to be doing with them. And I remember she sat down with the teachers at the table the first day I was there and positioned herself as lead learner. She said, “I'm going to be learning this right along with you, and I'll probably be asking more questions than in any of you do, because if I'm going to help lead this work, I really need to understand it.” And I thought what a powerful message that was that she openly acknowledged that she was the lead learner and then she really did do it. She was the one asking the most questions. She was genuinely curious and engaged.
And so I think leading by example is one of the most important things that we can do as leaders of teachers.
Clare Coupe Scott, Eduplanet21:
Do you have any other examples of where you've seen strong leaders lead mindset shifts?
Mike Anderson, Leading Great Learning:
Well, I think just sort of a piece of advice I have in general is to recognize that mindset shifts take time. We can't expect to have one really good PD day or PD event where everybody in the staff is all of a sudden going to shift gears and say, oh, now I get it, I'm ready to go. In my experience, it takes a really long time for mindset shifts to happen in a school.
And so it's about sort of the slow drip method of we need to keep leading by example, keep sharing our own enthusiasm, keep trying small moments of learning and professional development that will help shift mindsets over time. But not to rely on like a five day summer curriculum writing event to suddenly have the whole district to have a new mindset about curriculum. I think that never works well.
Clare Coupe Scott, Eduplanet21:
Also, celebrating the small wins, not the big one at the end, and to.
Mike Anderson, Leading Great Learning:
Focus on the small moments and not necessarily the big one. It's like if you decide you want to be a runner and you say, my goal is to run a marathon, and that's your only measure of success is if you actually run the marathon, you're probably not going to get there. First of all, because that's too big and too far away. But there are so many things to celebrate along the way, like the first time you run a mile, the first time you run a 5K, the first time you run for more than an hour. And you're right, it's so important. Recognize and notice those moments of growth along the way.
Clare Coupe Scott, Eduplanet21:
One final request I have for you. We all have to make small mindset shifts in our daily life, both at work and at home. What's a tip or two that you can give us today that we can kind of walk away with and learn from Mike about how to make those shifts a little easier?
Mike Anderson, Leading Great Learning:
Oh, my gosh, there's so much interesting research and information out there about how to shift habits and patterns over time. It's something I've been really digging into lately with a piece of writing I've been working on. But I'll share one really concrete idea. I'm not sure how well this applies to curriculum development, but I'll try it out and you can tell me what you think.
It's something I learned from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. He talks about the strategy of habit stacking, where if you want to adopt a new habit, if you want to try something new, tack it onto something that you're already doing. So if you're brushing your teeth every night but you're not flossing, if you tack on the flossing of your teeth while you're already brushing your teeth, you're stacking the new habit on top of an old one, and it can make it much easier to follow through.
Mike Anderson, Leading Great Learning:
Let's see if we can think about how this could work with curriculum development. Maybe if we've already got staff meetings and staff meetings are already something that people are coming to every other week, we have a faculty meeting.
As a school leader, can you weave in five minutes at staff meetings of people reflecting on the curriculum development they've been doing or the progress they're making or the mindset shift that we're working on as a school? For five minutes, every staff meeting we're kind of pecking away and working at that new mindset shift. That might be one way we could try habit stacking, either as school leaders or just personally. I found this habit really personally helpful for myself as I'm working at new exercise routines and eating routines. And I think it goes back to that idea you were talking about a minute ago of looking at the small wins, making sure that we're working at things slowly and smallly and not trying to go too fast with any one big shift.
Clare Coupe Scott, Eduplanet21:
Right. And I think anytime we can get ourselves comfortable with mindset shifts, whether they're curriculum related or not, they kind of spill over into the other work that we do. So I think sometimes it's easier to maybe make those mindset shift in a different place and then try to apply them.
Mike, thanks so much for joining me for today, for this brief conversation.
As a reminder, Mike can be found in two of our institutes. First in the newest institute, the Curriculum Management Institute. He also authored his own institute, focusing on Boosting Student Motivation, which, I can tell you, you don't want to miss. It's chock full of lots of practical applications for teachers every day.
Again, Mike, thanks so much for joining me.
Mike Anderson, Leading Great Learning:
Absolutely. Thank you, Clare.
Learn more about Eduplanet21 and the Curriculum Management and Professional Learning programs we offer, by visiting here.
