Five lessons for teachers from a field hockey team

As you may know from a previous post, my daughter has begun her first year in college. She is a member of her university's field hockey team and this post is all about a recent team event and all the lessons I am deriving from her experience for my teaching.

Last Thursday was "team date night." Unlike team bonding events which include the whole team and are usually on campus, date night is for small groups of a few team members to head off campus together. Here is how date night unfolded:

My daughter and two of her teammates (one a sophomore and the other a junior) were assigned to go on their date. They were paired because they all play mid-field.

Lesson 1: When I, as the teacher, form groups, I should let the students know why I put them together. What is the value of their combined efforts to the anticipated product or collaboration goal? What strength or vision do I see in them, combined?

The first stop on their date was at the Dollar Tree to stock up on supplies for the tradition of decorating in the locker room. Then they went to a gourmet frozen yogurt shop to hangout, bond, and do their homework. That's right. The captains assigned homework.

Lesson 2: Admittedly, I struggle with this one since I don't believe in homework (which is another post entirely). So here are a couple of questions: was it really homework? Am I calling it homework because they had to do it without adult or leader supervision? It may be more like classwork in that it was assigned to be accomplished at a specific time as established by the team. That they were doing it together means it wasn't an isolated and isolating task; and I think it is important to understand the nature of the assignment, too. It wasn't unsupported repetition of a skill or something they were supposed to learn during organized practices.

Their task, while out on their date, was to come up with three ways the team could improve their pregame, locker room experience. Friday (the next day) the team had a pre-practice meeting scheduled during which each "date team" was to present their ideas to the whole team.

Lesson 3: Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose (have they been reading Dan Pink?!) They were being asked to contribute to a goal that mattered to all them, both individually and collectively. Everyone had a reason to be invested and feel a measure of safety when brainstorming ideas. Each "date team" had complete autonomy in how and where to accomplish the task. They had complete license to be creative in their own ways. They were aware of the unique perspective they could bring to their ideation process because they knew why they had been paired with each other.

While they were eating yogurt and brainstorming their ideas, they received a Snapchat message from the captains. "Please send pictures of where you are and what you are doing."

Lesson 4: Accountability and celebration. I was so interested in this and pressed my daughter for more information. "It wasn't that they didn't trust us," she said. "When we checked in, they sent us back a 'good job!' message." The captains let the team members know they were interested in how they were doing -- not just what they were doing. And the dates were excited to share their process and progress. It was a celebration. And the documenting of it allowed for fun reporting back at the team meeting on Friday.

While on their dates, they also received a message instructing them to watch their step when they returned to their dorm rooms. Here is why: the captains were part of the fun, too! Outside of each players room was a muffin tin liner with an egg cracked in it. Next to the egg cup was a note that said: "Let's Yolk Mt. Holyoke" (their opponent in that weekend's game). Sending the team off campus meant they could distribute their items without being caught. I asked my daughter what everyone did with the eggs, and she said, "I don't know about everyone, but one of my friends walked right to the dorm kitchen, scrambled it, and ate it!"

Lesson 5: Be an active participant! Anything I ask my students to do, I should be doing myself.

My daughter has joined a wonderful community: one that is challenging, accepting, supportive, and creative. They focus on the individual, the collective and the relationships that bind and bond them. I want my students' families to know that same is true about their children in my class!

Playing the Long Game

This year I am playing a long game when it comes to building partnerships with my colleagues and expanding design thinking pedagogy. I had an opportunity to offer a PD spark to the faculty at my school and chose to focus on the question of how might we shift how we think about what we do so that we are teaching the students in the room, so that we are acutely in tune with who they are?

We began with a brainstorm in AnswerGarden of the best possible outcomes of "group work". Here is the word cloud they created:

Next I asked my colleagues to turn and talk about the obstacles that interfere with students achieving those outcomes. When I asked them to share with the whole group, here is what they said:

• "they don't get along"
• "indifference"
• "they change topics rather than staying on one topic and delving into that"
• "they socialize"

At this point I invited my colleagues to go on a journey with a group of students. We watched a video of students engaged in group work. While watching, I asked my colleagues to look for instances of the positive outcomes being achieved, interference by any of the obstacles, and any unanticipated outcomes or occurrences. I explained that as the students in the video were working, things get a little heated. I promised to do my best to hit pause before the expletives started flying.

Thanks to Micah Shippee there is a clean version of this video with subtitles, so if you choose to use this with students you don't have to worry about the language.

Embedded here is the video version that I showed by colleagues. I stopped it at 1:38.

Now, full disclosure: I would have avoided all profanity if I had stopped at 1:37. I purposely used the explicit version and let it play until the first bleepable word before hitting pause. I did that for two reasons:

1. the dropping of the f-bomb is an indication of a change in tactic
2. it got a laugh from a room full of teachers who had just sat through an hour of blood-borne pathogens and other required training

After the video I asked if they agreed it was group work. They did. And we talked about all of the successful elements ( with evidence drawn from what they could see and hear) and how the obstacles emerged and, in some cases, were overcome. And then we wondered together about how to make our classrooms the kind of environments that promote that kind of collaboration. What we discussed is summarized in this slide:

The next day I surreptitiously delivered a small maker kit to each department's work room. Each kit had the same craft materials and one piece of a little bit. They looked like this:

 Each kit was accompanied by this note: 

 The Science department has already submitted their animal! When all submissions have been received, I will display them in Library with a sheet of paper listing the directions for the project, anyone passing through the library will be invited to post stickers on the sheet corresponding to their favorite animal or the one they think best represents the department that created it. They will be invited to write feedback on a post-it and leave it with the animal. Based on those votes, I will announce "the winner". That department will receive the "Leeroy Jenkins Collaboration Award" -- a costume warrior helmet.

They will be able to proudly display the helmet in their workroom for the rest of the month. While in possession of the helmet, they can decorate, adorn or build it out in anyway they see fit. At the start of next month, I will announce a new challenge. The winner of that challenge will be the new keeper of the helmet, and so on. My goal: together we learn to make, we have fun, we practice pedagogy, we take safe risks, we celebrate each other's creativity, and we build a culture of innovation. It is only Day 2 of this long game. Stay tuned for updates!