Common Core Implementation

How a change in MINDSET and a

SWITCH in approach can make all the
difference
Grade 6-12 Teacher Ambassadors
Wednesday Evening Session
November 28, 2012

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
Why are we all here?
• You are all doing great work
• As ambassadors, your job is to:
• Implement the Common Core and its instructional
shifts with fidelity
• Build capacity in your colleagues to implement the
Common Core
• Motivate your colleagues and stakeholders around
the importance of this work

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 2
But let’s be honest.

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 3
This is hard, hard work

• These standards are new.

• It’s a lot to digest.
• You’re not entirely sure what your role as
Ambassador actually means.

And you probably feel

like you shouldn’t
complain.

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 4
What kept you up last night?
• Turn to your neighbor and share the 2-3
biggest concerns that you have about Common
Core implementation

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 5
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 6
Tonight’s Objectives
• Think about the impact of the Common Core
on students and challenge our mindset around
student learning
• Learn about a framework for thinking about
change and how to relate that framework to
Common Core implementation
• Develop your next steps as a Common Core
ambassador

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 7
Two Books, One Night

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 8
Alfred Binet (co-author of the IQ test)
In response to philosophers who said that
intelligence was a “fixed quantity” that cannot be
increased, he said:
“We must protest and react against this brutal
pessimism… With practice, training, and above all,
method, we manage to increase our attention, our
memory, our judgment…

… and literally become more

intelligent than we were
before.”
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
What You Need to Know

Smart is not something you are.

Smart is something you can get.

Think you can.

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
FIXED GROWTH

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 11
 FIXED GROWTH
Move from using
to using words like:
words like:

slow
skilled
smart
average currently
capable
performing


can’t
bright
easy hard strengths

and needs
weakness not yet

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
Fixed vs. Growth Mindset

FIXED GROWTH
Common Core If I participate in
looks hard. I professional
can’t do this. development,
I can learn.
I like the
way I teach. I’m learning
Why about new
change? ways to teach
Everyone of my my subject
students is capable of and I’m
My students
achieving at these excited about
can’t handle
levels. My job is to get it.
this.
smarter at teaching this
way.

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 13
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 15
Equation for Success

Confidence

Academic
Effective Effort
Success

High Expectations

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 16
CALVIN AND HOBBES by Bill Watterson

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
Jeff Howard on Dweck

Very Kinda Kinda

smart smart dumb

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 18
Dr. Sheldon Cooper

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 19
Vinny Barbarino

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 20
Quiet Reflection: Who are your VSs, KSs, KDs?

Very Kinda Kinda

smart smart dumb

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 21
Find Your Students’ Greatness

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 22
Switching Gears….
• As ambassadors, your job is to:
• Implement the Common Core and its instructional
shifts with fidelity
• Build capacity in your colleagues to implement the
Common Core
• Motivate your colleagues and stakeholders around
the importance of this work

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 23
Why Switch?
• Change is hard and we’re in the middle of a
change process.
• To make change stick, we have to change our own
behaviors and help change the behaviors of others.
• Tonight we’ll show you a framework to help you
do that work.
Reflecting on what you can do differently to implement the
Common Core effectively
Reflecting on what you can do to help your colleagues
implement the Common Core effectively

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 24
Making a Switch
To effect change in ourselves and our
colleagues and systems, we have to reach
both the rider and the elephant.

The
The emotional
emotional side:
side:

The
The ELEPHANT
ELEPHANT

The
The rational
rational side:
side: Rally the
The
The RIDER
RIDER herd

Point to the Script the critical

Find the feeling
destination moves
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
The Switch Framework
• Direct the rider:
• tell your rider why this change is important (point to
the destination) and what, specifically, you should be
doing differently (script the critical moves)

• Motivate the elephant: make your elephant feel

something (find the feeling) and motivate others to
change as well (rally the herd)

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 27
Directing the Rider: Point to the Destination

• Change is easier when you know

where you are going and why it’s
worth it.

• It helps to identify a
“destination postcard,”
a picture of a future
that hard work can
make possible

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 28
Are we at the destination when all third
graders are reading at grade level?
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 29
When more girls are taking advanced science

classes?

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
 When we have a
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
 When all high school

graduates go on to

college?

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
Invent revolutionary products?

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
Build great things?

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
Directing the Rider: Point to the Destination

• Why do you do this work?

• What does success look like for you?
• What is happening in your classroom/school
that indicates that this work has been
successful?
• Individually, write your destination on the
front of your “postcard.”
• Share your destinations at your table.

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 35
Directing the Rider: Script the Critical Moves

• What looks like resistance is often a lack

of clarity, or too many choices.
• Your rider needs focus and goals (i.e.,
“critical moves”) to avoid decision
paralysis.

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 36
What are Critical Moves?
•They start with the destination in mind
•They articulate how people should act
•They begin with an achievable first step

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
Critical Moves: 1% Milk
The USDA wanted people to eat
healthier, but that task seemed
daunting. It decided on a critical
move: Recommend consumers
switch to 1% milk.

USDA created ads showing

how a glass of milk contains as
much fat as three strips of
bacon.
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 38
Examples of Critical Moves

1. Identify and map out the Common Core

standards you will be teaching and when
next semester
2. Plan a PD session for your colleagues
around the shifts and the modules
3. Review your next two units and determine
what you can cut out that isn’t directly
aligned to the standards

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 39
Script Your Critical Moves
The scene:
•You need to make decisions about what you are going
to do over the next several months to implement the
Common Core and build the capacity of your colleagues
to do the same.
The activity:
•On the back of your postcard, write down the first 2-3
critical moves that represent your next steps in Common
Core implementation.

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
Motivating the Elephant

• Find the feeling

•Knowing something isn’t
enough to cause change. People
need to feel something.

• Rally the herd

•Behavior is contagious. Help it
spread.

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 41
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 42
Finding the Feeling: Examples

43
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 44
Motivating the Elephant: Rally the Herd
• Behavior is contagious: We often do things
because our peers are doing them.
•Overeating
•Getting married, having kids
•Shaking hands to greet someone
•Wearing fashionable fluffy boots
•Buying an iPhone

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
Nothing attracts a crowd like, well, a crowd

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 46
Elevator pitch

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
How will you rally your herd?
You walk onto an elevator on the 30th floor of a building
and find yourself standing beside a teacher who is
skeptical of the new standards. The doors close. You have
1 minute until you reach the lobby.
•Find a partner and develop convincing, motivating and
passionate reasons why the Common Core standards are relevant
and important and write them on your postcard

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org
Recapping….

Move from a fixed to a growth

mindset

Change!

Point to the
Find the feeling
destination
Rally the
Script the critical
herd
moves

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 49
Next Steps
• Next week:
•Use your destination postcard, your critical moves and your
elevator pitch to begin drafting your own ambassador plan
• Before the holiday break:
• Share your plan with your principal/leadership team
• Share your plan with your NT/NTE
• Begin implementing your plan
• By the February NTI:
• Refine and update your plan as needed
• Bring success stories from plan implementation

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org 50
Thank You.

www.engageNY.org
www.engageNY.org