gcouros

December 2, 2019November 29, 2019

4 Ideas to Help You Start a Blog and Write Consistently

Below is a blog post by DBC/IMpress author George Couros author of best-selling books Innovate Inside the Box and Innovator’s Mindest. George talks about how to write start a blog and write consistently, which is a great habit to start in 2020!

As many educators are either on their summer break or about to enter it, I know many are looking for great books to read. This is great, but as we hope for our students, consumption should not be the only focus, but creation as well. If you are looking to read, how will you connect the information you consume and dig deeper?

For this, blogging is a great tool not only to synthesize your learning but to also catalog it into a type of library. Going through the process of writing “The Innovator’s Mindset” and finishing my second book, my blog was invaluable in finding great information from others that I had placed into my blog that I could reshare in a book. To find it, it was a simple as searching “George Couros + Search Term.” For example, to assist others in their journey for blogging, I just Googled “George Couros Blogging” and found these old posts that may be able to assist you on your journey that I wrote previously:

3 Ways Blogging Has Helped me Grow as a Learner

3 Ideas to Help You Blog

5 Reasons Your Portfolio Should be a Blog

(For more articles, you can check out my “blogging” tag.)

But the process of blogging can be daunting (for many reasons) so how do I start?

Here are some of my suggestions for people that are either new to blogging or dusting off an old blog and want to recommit.

1. It doesn’t have to be a college essay.

I guess that most of my blog posts are under 500 words. Some aren’t,’ but that is okay as well because sometimes I need to dig deeper and I use blogging to not only share my learning but blogging as a way to learn. But many get stuck in the idea that blog posts are like college essays and have to have a certain length before they are considered valid. I love short, quick blog posts, and to the point, but I also like ones that are longer and take a deeper dive into ideas — both work. Sometimes when we focus on writing for length, it stops us from writing altogether. My rule; if I have something to write that doesn’t fit into a tweet, that’s a blog post. It doesn’t have to be much more, or it can be a lot more.

PS…It can be tweet length as well. Don’t get caught up in the idea “I haven’t written enough.”

2. You can reference other work or articles in your post and share a few short ideas.

When I read an excellent article or see a video I like, I want to commit the idea to my library of learning further. Blogging about it not only “bookmarks” it for future use, but it allows me to process and better understand the ideas.

As in point one, it doesn’t have to be a long post to be valid. Recently, I wrote the post “The Unbucket List,” which is a term I had never heard of before. It consisted of the following structure:

– Intro paragraph
– Quote from article
– Four more short paragraphs

That’s it. That’s a blog post. Not only did I get to highlight the work of someone else and a great idea, but the idea of the “Unbucket List” also will never leave me because I took the time to archive it in my blog, thus securing it in my brain.

3. Focus more on consistent release times, not on blogging all of the time.

This is a suggestion I have shared with many people looking to start a blog. You may read this post and think, “I want to start this!” and then write five posts this week, and then not another for six months. The lack of consistency is not beneficial to you, and in all honesty, does not help you build an audience. Yes, I write for myself, but I do appreciate that others read it as well, as I think most people do. I love this quote from Clive Thompson:

Here is a simple tip. Pick a day (or days) of the week that you will “release” a post. For example, I am going to release a post every Monday afternoon. This will not only help you commit to reflect consistently, but it creates some accountability to yourself, just like going to the gym “x” times a week. This is an appointment with yourself. If you commit to every Monday afternoon, this doesn’t mean you have to commit to writing every Monday morning. Although I am writing this post on a Sunday, I am scheduling it to post on Tuesday afternoon as I commit to posting on Sunday morning, Tuesday afternoon, and Thursday afternoon. You might want to post once a week, once every two weeks, or twelve times a year. Whatever combo works for you is the one that works for you.

Making a schedule with ourselves helps to improve consistency in the process.

4. Find a blog buddy.

I have several people who send me their posts when they are published. Not only does this help them have some accountability to themselves, selfishly, but this also helps me grow as well. Reading other people’s posts on education helps me grow personally, and I love what they share. People that share their posts with me consistently are Mike Washburn, Kat Goyette, and Annick Rauch. I assume they are learning through their process, but I love what they write, and their experience and wisdom help me grow as well. Find someone to help you in the process as it is mutually beneficial.

Blogging has been one of the best, if not the best thing I have done my professional (and sometimes personal) growth in my career. It makes me think about what I do and share, and it does not only help me dig deeper into ideas, but it archives those ideas for future thinking. I hope that I have provided some advice that might help you on your journey, but remember, it is your journey. Do what works for you. The best part about blogging for me is that the process is my own to grow as it will be yours as well. Find what works for you.

November 11, 2019October 29, 2019

The Importance of Classroom Observations

Below is a blog post by DBC/IMpress author George Couros author of best-selling books Innovate Inside the Box and Innovator’s Mindest.

Notice the title of the post…”The Importance of Classroom Observations.”

When you hear the term, do you think of observing and evaluating teachers or of the logistics of the space?

To me, the term means something different, and it is more of an evaluation of administration than it is of teachers.

Let me explain…

When I worked as a principal and eventually at central office, I would often take my laptop into classrooms with the permission of a teacher and simply sit in the back of a class and answer email or complete documents that I needed for my work. I would spend easily 2-3 hours in a classroom, and I would often explicitly tell the teacher that I was not there to observe them, but the environment we helped create in the classroom to support them.

For example, I remember having a conversation with our IT department on how our computers only took two minutes to login. But that “two minutes” with 25 students in front of you and one of them going wrong could turn into 30 minutes, and eventually lead to a teacher not wanting to use them again. You see, the “two minutes” was the time it took a single adult. When I noticed this, we had conversations on how we would lower the “login time” for technology (we moved to Chromebooks) to remove a barrier in the classroom for all of our teachers so they could see more success in the process.

“Class size” may seem inconsequential until you sit in a classroom for two hours and notice that it does have an impact on meeting the needs of individual students.

Seating in a classroom may seem insignificant until you have to sit at the same desk a students does for multiple hours in a day.

If you are in a role that makes decisions for what the environment looks like in a classroom, you need to be present in those classrooms. Teaching might seem like a singular responsibility, but if we want to ensure the success of our students, we have to understand that it is a team sport.

Image result for "being a leader is not about you" susan vobejda

July 16, 2019

What does “better” mean to you and your students?

Below is a post by IMPress author George Couros whose book will be available on amazon on August 14th, 2019! For now, you can check out his first book The Innovator’s Mindset.

I have been re-reading the book “Empower” by AJ Juliani and John Spencer, and I loved this portion from John:

Here’s a quick confession: I (John) used to hate the word “innovative.” See those quotation marks right there around the word? Those are actually air quotes that I would use whenever I used the term. “It’s a buzzword,” I would say. “It’s overused,” I would point out.

But the truth is, sometimes a word becomes trendy because it’s tapping into something we all agree is important. Is it misused? Sometimes. Is it overused? Often. But so are the words “love” and “awesome” and “friend,” but I have no intention of ditching any of those words. I think I reacted poorly to the word “innovation” because it had a certain overly glossy, high-tech connotation to it. It made me think of the EPCOT Center and of the Astrodome and of the Flowbee (a true innovation in haircutting that combined a hair trimmer and a vacuum). But that’s not innovation. That’s novelty. That’s disruption.

I have been discussing innovation for probably the past ten years, and I agree with John here, 100%. When people use the word “innovation” to describe something new (usually technology related) than it does become a buzzword. This happens a lot in education where a term becomes “trendy” and is used without thought of what it means, which in turn makes the word a buzzword. It is not saying that the word in itself is terrible, but it is in the way that it is used.

In my book, “The Innovator’s Mindset,” I defined the word innovation as the following:

I’m defining innovation as a way of thinking that creates something new and better. Innovation can come from either “invention” (something totally new) or “iteration” (a change of something that already exists), but if it does not meet the idea of “new and better,” it is not innovative. That means that change for the sake of change is never good enough.

The “better” part of the definition is the most crucial. The word “better” is vital when it comes to traditional practice or innovative practice. Some traditional methods work better for our students in learning, and that is crucial to understand. If we gravitate toward the “new” only because it is trendy and lose our students along the way, it is not innovation; it is bad practice.

Blake Harvard discusses this idea in his post, “What if Better isn’t Better?“:

But what constitutes ‘better’? How do I know when a new way is a better way? For me, better is equivalent to students learning more. Whatever the ‘better’ is assists my students with learning/remembering/retaining more information in a more efficient and/or effective manner. What does ‘better’ mean to you? I think this is a vitally important question to consider and I’m not sure all educators sincerely know what their ‘better’ is.

The question I have bolded is essential, not only for individuals but as schools and organizations. What does “better” actually mean? If you are looking for an answer from me, I won’t give it to you directly. Here is why; what is often measured as “better” in schools is all about higher scores. But understand, this doesn’t mean it is better learning. For example, a lot of studies that discuss “effective practice” totally correlate it to test scores, but in your experience as an educator, have you ever seen students that could ace a test but not truly understand the content? I will admit that I have taught that way in my career because the sole measure of my effectiveness what was if kids did well on a test. We promote the importance of scores in education, yet many organizations that scores are not an accurate indicator of someone’s ability. I am not against students doing well on standardized exams, but I also know that some of our smartest kids in our schools are weak academically. There is more to learning and understanding than we could ever possibly measure on a standardized test.

We also need to understand that people other than the students often define the “better” for our kids. This is why I have often discussed the importance of having students define what “success” looks like for them. Do we genuinely become as passionate or resilient in achieving goals that are solely set by others? I struggle with the thought that sometimes the “scores” are placed at the forefront because it is an easier way to show the success of the adults than it is to show the success of our students.

I believe that as a school if we are talking about “best practices” or “innovation,” or anything else, we have to figure out what “better” means for our students, and from our community. How we assess this “better” will drive practice, not the other way around.

June 24, 2019June 20, 2019

Simplest Gestures Are Often the Most Memorable

Below is a blog post from one of our upcoming authors George Couros! His book, Innovate Inside the Box, will be out August 2019!

When I was in Grade 4, my teacher, Miss Butler, ended the year by giving everyone a personalized card that wrote about the unique things she saw in me in the classroom. As my parents owned a restaurant, she thanked my family for providing pizza for the class, and also acknowledged my sense of humor in the classroom (which was sometimes seen as a detriment in later grades). I call it a “card,” but it was a cutout on thick paper of a blue smurf because I loved the smurfs (don’t judge).

Everything about this simple card still sticks in my head today. The thought of acknowledging my strengths while knowing things I was interested in, and tying it all together in one card. I won awards in elementary school, but those memories are heavily blurred at best. But I can remember getting that card handed to me, the feeling I had when I received it, and how much I cherished it after. These things always stick with me, and it was the reason that I did the same thing for my elementary classes when I became a teacher. That one simple act of acknowledging me sticks out to this day.

This quote resonates:

Image result for a small gesture quote

When I talk to educators about the hopes for my daughter in a classroom, I share that she will walk into school feeling valued, appreciated, and you will try your best to not only develop her weaknesses but focus on bringing out her strengths. These are things, no matter the mandate, Miss Butler proved a student could feel not only with how she treated us throughout the year but with that simple gesture.

What little things did you experience as a student that you remember to this day?