Teaching at GHP

On the student survey, we ask, “Was the content of your classes different from classes at your school?” We do not replicate the high school curriculum. We do not teach the Georgia Performance Standards or the Common Core. We provide our students with material that they will not encounter in a regular high school classroom.

Your class may be a college-level kind of course, or it might take students deeper into material to which they’ve already been introduced. You could do a broad introduction to a field, or delve deeply into a specific topic or work.

Some examples from years past:

• Hap Truslow (SocStuds) brought photocopies of actual pension files of the New York Irish Brigade of the Union Army. Each student got his “own” soldier, and Hap guided them through decoding the documents in the file. The student had to evaluate whether the claim for a pension was justified based on their research into the Civil War battles the soldier (or his heirs) claimed he was in and the wounds he claimed to have received.
• In Science (various instructors), the ecology students do field research using the various habitats here on campus, especially the creek. They learn to make specific and close observations and then set up experiments to answer questions they’ve developed.
• Jobie Johnson (CommArts) guides students through Anglo-Saxon poetry, giving them the tools they need to pick apart the pagan basis from the Christian overlays.
• Mike Funt (Theatre) works with masks and clowning to teach students how to use their bodies to express a storyline.

You have probably already talked to your department chair about what you want to cover in your class. If not, do so soon!

A good question is, “How different is too different?” We have to be able to afford whatever you’re teaching, of course; practical nuclear physics is probably not a good topic, and the budget certainly will not allow for a classroom set of the Riverside Shakespeare. Also, while our students are intellectually sophisticated, they are still minors. You have more latitude in addressing mature topics than you would back home, but remember that not just anything goes. My rule for that is if the topic is defensible, I will defend it. If you have questions about your plans, run them by me.

In comments, share ideas and questions you have about your instruction.

NEXT: Delivery and expectation of student response

On the student survey, we ask, “Was the way your teacher taught it different from your school?” While lecture is sometimes the most expedient way to get information into the students’ heads, we expect to see more than just lecture going on in GHP classes.

That is not to scare you away from lecture completely. Some of GHP’s finest courses have been lecture courses. But on the whole, the rubric to remember is that if you feel as if you’re working too hard, it’s probably because you are. Use delivery models that put the burden of learning on the student: discovery, read and response, abstraction/analysis/synthesis, etc.

As I observe you this summer, I do not necessarily need to see you standing and delivering. If I walk into your room and it looks as if you’re sitting in the corner doing nothing, that’s probably a good thing, as long as it’s obvious that the kids are deeply engaged and productive because of some switch you’ve flipped. One summer when I toured State School Superintendent Kathy Cox around the campus, in most of the classes we entered we didn’t see the teacher do anything. And it was fabulous.

We also ask the students, “Was the way the teacher(s) asked you to respond to it different?” and “Was what the teacher(s) expected you to do with it different?”

What does that mean? As an example, in a regular math class the student might be expected to learn a paradigm for solving a particular kind of problem, and then to practice that paradigm. At GHP, the student might be expected to develop a paradigm for solving a class of problems, or to be able to explain alternatives to the paradigm, or to create problems that would defeat the paradigm.

In music, rather than a goal of merely “getting all the notes right,” we could expect students to explore historically appropriate stylistic issues, or to be able to verbalize how their ensemble visualized a certain passage.

Ask yourself: when a student leaves my class, what should he be able to do that he wasn’t able to do before?

In comments, discuss things that you found to be clear or unclear about the differentiation of delivery and expectation of student response.

NEXT: Empowerment

Marcie:

My office hours are basically whenever I’m awake. I’m at meals in the Palms Dining Hall, and those are also office hours. Feel free to sit and chat.

My apartment is my office, and when the door is open, I’m “in.” It won’t look like I’m in, because you have to go behind the front desk, through the supply room into my apartment, and then come down a long hall into my living area/office area. But if the door is open, just barge on in.

You may poke your head in my door and see me working. Just come on in! If the door is closed, and you really need to see me, knock. If I am in my apartment, I will answer.

Dale:

My office hours are whenever you see me. I’m at meals in the Palms Dining Hall, and those are also office hours. Feel free to sit and chat.

My apartment is my office, and you are always welcome to come knock on my door, which is a little out of the way this year: you have to go all the way around the west end of Langdale.  (I’d give you more explicit instructions, but the first time I saw this space in April, it wasn’t even finished.  I think it’s in a little cubbyhole to the right of the patio area.)

We have WiFi in the dorm!!! The copier may be networked—hope springs eternal—if so, there will be instructions on printing from your computer in your dorm room. There will also be instructions on how not to waste half a ream of paper trying to get your copies just right, and on how to avoid jams. Do us all a favor and familiarize yourself with them! The copier is your friend and does not have any ill-intentions towards you or your subject area.

Having guests? Not a problem, generally. There will be a form on the front desk for you to fill out and give to Marcie.

If the guest is for your instructional program, Marcie will set up a room with linens for them. They’ll also get a room key and an ID tag. (The ID gets them into the dorm. It does not feed them like our IDs do.)

If it’s a personal guest who’s staying in the room with you, Marcie doesn’t really need a form.

If it’s a personal guest who needs a separate room, fill out the form so Marcie can get them a room key and ID tag. You will need to provide linens for personal guests.

To be clear: we pay for instructional guests to eat at the Palms, but not personal guests.

You are about to have an amazing summer. Yes, you are anxious, nervous, panic-stricken. We all were. Dale says:

“I distinctly remember the first time I saw the campus and my dorm room and wondered what I had gotten myself into. Would I do a good job? Would I ‘get it’? Would I make any friends? How would I even know what to do or where to go?”

Clearly he did OK and you will, too! You are joining the best educational team in the state, bar none. We look forward to helping you “get it,” and we really look forward to having your talents added to our enormous pool.

And finally, a simple list of questions that we will be using to evaluate your instructional design:

• Is the material new, different? Is the strategy innovative? Are both appropriate?
• How are students being challenged, stretched to think, perform, produce?
• What knowledge is new? What skills are the students learning or practicing? What related behaviors are they expected to demonstrate? Have they been prepared to deal with the knowledge/skills/behavior?
• What kind of interaction is visible? Who is interacting with whom?
• Who is generating the task/learning activity? What is the type of learning activity? (Renzuli I, II, or III)
• What is the general level of motivation, concentration, alacrity to perform/produce, perseverance, creativity, tolerance of ambiguity, of the students? (Habits of Mind)

NEXT: Odds & ends

A word about observations. If you’re a first-timer, Marcie will set up a time with you sometime during the first week to come watch your class. She will observe for at least 30 minutes. You don’t have to stop what you’re doing when she comes in, nor do you have to acknowledge her when she leaves. (The same applies to Dale.)

She will try to get with you later to chat about what she saw. If she fails to do so, you can assume that she didn’t see any problems at all. (Conversely, do not assume, if we approach you, that we have issues with your teaching.)

She will be back to observe at least twice more during the summer. At least one of those observations she’ll ask you to tell her a good time to come. Other times she may just pop in. She is not trying to “catch” you doing anything except a good job.

Do not worry that it looks like you’re not doing anything. As long as the students are actively engaged, participating, and producing, you’re teaching.

In other words, relax about the observation/assessment thing.

Today’s criteria have to do with classroom management.

What is the class activity/student task?

An observer should be able to discern what’s going on, or at least that something is going on.

Who is doing the talking? the listening? the analyzing? the decision making? the problem solving? In what balance?

Especially as the class progresses, we really need to see more and more student activity compared to the amount that you’re center stage. We should also see a balance among the students: there shouldn’t be a “smart kid” problem.

What materials/equipment is being used and how?

Let us not see worksheets, please. Hide them or something. (N.B.: handouts are not worksheets. You probably should be handing those out.)

Are the students engaged directly with the material, or are they having to go through you to get it?

If your classroom is a smart room, are you able to incorporate that effectively?

What posture are the students in? Where is the teacher? Is every student actively engaged?

No sleeping! You also want to check for “boredom” postures. If there’s resistance to the material, figure out why. Is it the one kid, or is it all of them?

Are you actively monitoring student response, or are you hiding in the work?

How is the learning environment arranged?

This is more important than you might think. Every summer, VSU’s staff moves literal mountains of furniture for us so that your classroom is set up for maximum flexibility. Make sure you use that flexibility appropriately. (Science labs are less flexible, to be sure.)

If you’re lecturing, students need to be facing you. If you’re having a class discussion, you all need to be in a circle so everyone can see each other. Small group work in small groups. Panel discussion: small group up front, everyone else facing them.

If you have a larger room and you need interactivity between the students, don’t let them spread out. Bunch them, preferably up close to you.

What role is the instructor taking, e.g., lecturer, demonstrator, resource person, facilitator, etc.?

All of these are valid, and you should have realized by now that you will want to be open to all of them.

From what source is the information coming?

Vid. sup., how close are kids to the primary source? Renzulli I activities may require you to do a lot of shoveling, but our goal at GHP is to move out of that phase as quickly as possible.

NEXT: Your evaluation: Instructional functions, part II

How will you know if you’re doing a good job? We use both operational criteria and classroom criteria in deciding whether to ask you to return to teach another summer. The operational criteria are what Dale’s wife (a personnel director) calls “conditions of employment,” i.e., if you don’t take care of these, you’re not doing your job (and will not be rehired).

Attention to time constraints

Start on time, finish on time. Majors start at 8:00 a.m and end at 12:30 p.m., unless your classroom is in Fine Arts, in which case your time is 8:15-12:45. (The time difference is to spread out the 800 people for lunch.) Also, dance majors in University Center are on the 8:00-12:30 schedule so that they can arrive at Palms Dining Center at a reasonable time.

Do not allow tardies, and do not ever let students go early. This is a matter of supervision. They cannot get back into their dorms until 12:30—the doors are locked until then—and if they come to lunch before then, then that fact will be noticed by either Dale or Marcie.

Students can not “get out of minors” to do work on major classes. Remember this as time becomes short and nerves become frayed.

Supervision of students

Know where they are! Do not allow the students any opportunity to get into trouble. Even if you have them doing independent work, circulate. If you’re in the library (or out on campus somewhere), arrange to meet everyone at a specified checkpoint before returning to class, leaving for break, or dismissing.

Prepare yourself a series of sticky notes to leave on the classroom door for when you’re not in there: computer lab, library, West Lawn, the creek, wherever we can find you if we need to.

Discipline is the same, yet very different, than a regular high school. It is the same in the behavior we expect of our students (although the atmosphere is quite a bit more relaxed), but it is different in that we have no administrative system to monitor that discipline. Nor do we want one: we interpret inappropriate behavior as an indication that the student doesn’t want to be a part of the GHP community. It is part of your job to make sure it doesn’t get to that point.

Make your expectations clear. Don’t tolerate behavior that impedes your class, but do your best not to draw lines in the sand.

Use of support areas

In addition to the sixteen majors at GHP, there are four support areas: computers, counseling, fitness, and media. You are expected to use each of them in your department. If your department chair hasn’t broached this with you already, ask.

We have one computer lab for student use. You can sign up for lab time for majors. Computers have their own minors, so lab time is more sparse in the afternoon. (The VSU library also has banks of computers that we use.)

Counseling, in addition to serving as a support area for your instruction, actually counsels. A lot. Look out for those unhappy/angry/withdrawn students the first few days, and offer to hook them up with a counselor if necessary.

Fitness offers fitness activities before breakfast and in the evenings which you are welcome to join. They’ll have a schedule posted in the dorm. They also offer team-building exercises for your majors (as well as other sessions you will find useful).

Media is there to guide your students through the resources they need to do the work you assign. During the first week, you are required to take your class to Odum Library at some point for orientation.  Work with the media specialist on that!

Response to requests for information

Better known as “paperwork.” There’s not a lot at GHP, and your department chair will handle most of it, but when we ask you for info, we need that info. If we have to come ask you for it, that’s a bad thing.

Engagement & participation

You, too, should be engaged and participating in GHP. Go to the concerts. Attend other departments’ public events. Teach a seminar. (Dale teaches a Sunday night series on historical social dance: the waltz, the polka, English country dance, the foxtrot, the tango.)

You should be having a good time: hang out in the dorm lobby with the nutcases there. Eat lunch with members of other departments. Give the math people a hard time.

It is also acceptable to sit quietly in your room and work on lessons.

Finally, maintain your sense of humor. As Mr. Bennet says in Pride & Prejudice, “For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbors, and to laugh at them in our turn?” It has been our experience that someone without a sense of humor, particularly about themselves, will not succeed at GHP.

Random details

We require the students to wear their nametags at all times. You will do the same.

GHP is free to its participants. Do not ask students to spend money on anything in order to do the work you assign.

NEXT: Your evaluation: Instructional functions, part I

Here are some more ways to measure progress in your class without testing.

Behavior change

If you have a student who is not participating, engaged, or productive, then start pushing for behavior change and measure that.

You can measure overt behavior: does he now shut up and listen to others in the group? Is he more orderly in his productivity?

You can measure intellectual behavior as well: has he improved in his ability to argue a point? Has he ratcheted up his level of response to the material?

It is perfectly fine to make your goals for a student explicit to him. “I’ve noticed that you hang back when we’re discussing the essay. What’s up with that? What can we do to get you more comfortable jumping in?”

Habits of Mind

Robert Marzano, in his Dimensions of Learning, proposed “Habits of Mind” as the fifth dimension/area. These are behaviors of a mature, metacognitive learner, and we certainly should expect our students to be able to be outstanding in all the criteria Marzano developed.

There are thirteen of these criteria, and they include things like tolerating ambiguity, being aware of and sensitive to other’s level of learning, being accurate and seeing accuracy, setting one’s own standards, etc.

We strongly urge you to look through the following links:

• From Marzano’s Assessing Student Learning, the thirteen Habits of Mind standards [pdf], including the top of the four-point rubric he presents in that book. Look for these behaviors; provoke these behaviors.
• A slightly different take from Art Costa and Bena Kallick: Describing 16 Habits of Mind [pdf]
• Theorising Habits of Mind as a Framework for Learning [pdf]

Feedback

Finally, if you really want to know how the class is going, ask. Have a discussion at the end of the week about how things went. Do a survey. Have them write in their journals. Ask them if it was challenging, engaging, interesting. Listen, and respond accordingly.

By the end of the first week, you ought to have seen enough of these indicators to know whether each student is working appropriately and whether your instruction is hitting the mark. If you see anything wrong, it’s time to intervene. Do not wait until the fourth week to come to me and complain about a student “not doing any of the work”!

If you are in a department that rotates kids, make sure you share your observations about problem students with the others in your department so that everyone can bear down on the problem.

Next up, what we do to evaluate you!

We don’t do tests or grades at GHP—students receive no formal evaluaton or credit for their participation in the program. So how do we tell if we—and they—are doing a good job?

Participation

First, check for participation. Is the student actually participating in class? Are all the students participating in class? (We might as well say at this point that we are all sleep deprived by week 4, but no one sleeps during class time.)

Does the student bring things to the group? Does he follow up on other people’s comments? Does he read the passage you’ve assigned? Does he jump into the discussion?

Is the kid participating in the program as a whole? Does he go to seminars, to concerts?

Engagement

Is the kid engaged with the material? With his peers? With you and other adults? Is he engaged with the program?

There is a difference between participation and engagement. A student can participate but not be engaged at all.

Here’s Dale’s classic example:

I was observing a theatre class one morning, and they were doing one of those circle exercises, where a kid in the middle was performing some repetitive action. Everyone in the circle was mirroring the motion. Eventually the person in the middle would go over to another student in the circle, “transferring” the motion to the new person, who would move into the circle. The new person would modify the motion somehow, and the process would continue.

One young man attracted my attention. He was certainly participating: he was doing all the motions and paying enough attention to mirror the motion when it changed. But he was in no way engaged. His whole demeanor said, “My teacher told me to come because it would look good on my resumé, but since they don’t do ‘real plays,’ I won’t learn anything.” And he wasn’t learning anything. Watch out for the non-engaged.

Conversely, you may have a student who is intently engaged, just devouring your class and the program as a whole, but isn’t participating in class. You have to watch out for these “quiet ones” as well and help them find a way to jump into the pool with everyone else.

Productivity

Is the kid producing? Is he actually doing the work: reading, writing, finding data, warming up, finishing assignments, taking risks?

Believe it or not, we actually will have kids who decide that since there’s not a grade hanging over their head, they don’t have to do any work. If this kid is in your class, speak to him right friendly in his ear, and if that doesn’t work, call Marcie in. We’ll rough him up a bit explain to him how GHP works and his role in it, and if he still doesn’t “participate fully in the program,” as his handbook says, we’ll send him home. (Usually with this kind of kid there are other programmatic issues as well.)

Participation—engagement—productivity. Look for these three markers, and look for them assiduously the first week. They are your best indicators of how well the students are coping with the program.

In our next post, we”ll discuss a few factors which indicate how well your carefully designed instruction is going.

Continuing our examination of what those students heading your way are like…

This one is very important: they are no better at groups than regular students. In fact, they’re probably worse. Think about it: when you assign a group project, whose is the first hand in the air? It’s the gifted kid, asking if she can do it on her own.

The reason is obvious, of course: when they’re “stuck” in a group, they’re the ones who have to do all the work, either because their team mates don’t do the work, or often, because the work their team mates do is not “acceptable.”

This aspect goes hand in hand with our next item: they are opinionated and more than willing to share their opinions. Everything is a debate, an argument, and they are going to win.  (This is the main reason why we do not use competition as an instructional strategy in the classroom.)

So if you want them working in groups—and you do—then you’re probably going to have to monitor and model cooperation and division of labor. You will have to teach them how to discuss a topic, not debate it. Watch for, and take care of, the quiet ones.

Finally, and probably most importantly, look out for the impostor syndrome. That’s the still, small voice in the back of everyone’s brain that is always whispering, “What if you’re not really as smart or talented as everyone thinks you are? What if they find out you’re a fraud?”

In gifted people, that voice is a little stronger than in most people’s heads, and when the kids arrive on campus, that voice is roaring to the point that some can’t hear anything else. (You’re probably hearing it a bit yourself!)

This syndrome manifests itself in a couple of ways. You may see the kid who decides to hide: he won’t offer any ideas, he hesitates to share, he sits back and watches. He is simply not going to expose himself as the ungifted idiot that he surely is.  (And for a brilliant look at this very phenomenon, see this essay.)

Another manifestation is the kid who decides to go on the offensive and prove to you that not only is he gifted, he’s the most gifted kid in the room. He will answer all your questions, he will correct his peers, he will correct you.

Just be aware of what’s prompting these behaviors and be prepared to gently assist those students who exhibit them. By Thursday, nearly every kid has figured out that he does belong and is as happy as a clam.

By Thursday, you should have figured out basically the same thing. Welcome to GHP!

NEXT: 11. Evaluation without artifacts, part I

Let’s talk about the students you’ll be empowering this summer.

Yes, they’re gifted. (Gifted? Honey, Please…) Let’s parse what that means in terms of being prepared to deal with them effectively.

First, be aware that your students are coming from all different kinds of backgrounds. A few may be coming from The Magnet School for Kids Who Read Really Good and Can Do Other Stuff Really Good Too, but you will also have a few from Podunk Tri-Counties Area Comprehensive High.

In all seriousness, you may have a kid come up to you in the first week or so and tell you he doesn’t belong here. Feel free to remind him of all the hoops he had to jump through to get here. And offer him a counselor.

Likewise, the kid who’s truly advanced may cop an attitude of being “unchallenged.” Feel free use the line we give the parents: “I see. What are you going to do about it?” Empower that student to make it more challenging for himself.

Offer yourself for lunchtime “tutoring” or after-minors sessions. Refer the fast learners to source materials or further reading. You know what to do.  (Do you know what not to do?  Don’t take it as a personal attack on your teaching ability—even if the student means it to be.)

The second thing you need to be aware of is that these students have a very short attention span for banality. They are expecting “different,” and they have every right to do so. Don’t be giving them worksheets.

They’re very good at role-playing and self-parody: have them stage a Senate Agricultural Committee hearing or compare GHP to the Weimar Republic. They delight in whimsy: let them play childhood games in French. They seek patterns and tools: show them “here”s how you use… archetypal analysis/gas spectrometry/three-point perspective.”

Third thing: they are of course much much better at receiving and digesting information than regular kids, but even they may not get it the first time. Double-check that they’ve got it before moving on.

NEXT: The nature of the beast, part II