John Maxwell in his book Everyone Communicates Few Connect raises some interesting notions and questions. He says:
“Talk is cheap. Everyone does it. The question is, how can you make your words matter and influence any outcome and how can you really connect with others?”
Connecting for me comes down to a couple of main ideas. I believe in order to make a difference you need to establish a relationship with that person or group of people. If they don’t trust you, or feel you care, then you won’t be able to connect. The second piece is we need to take time to listen. Maxwell sums it up as, “Don’t fall in love with the sound of your own voice.” Although we think what we have to say is important the greatest ideas are born out of 3 or 4 other great ideas.
According to Dr. John Hattie, teachers spend 70 – 80% of their time talking in their classrooms. To put that into context, in a high school, the average class length is 80 minutes and teachers spend 75% of their time talking. That means that on average teachers spend 60 minutes a class talking.
Now I realize this does not apply to everyone but statistically speaking it’s a fact.
Reflecting on this as a classroom teacher I have the following questions:
Why do I talk so much?
Who is listening to me?
Why am I doing all the work?
What I notice about these questions is that they are all teacher-focused and not centered around student learning.
What I should be asking is:
What is the evidence of student learning?
What forms of assessment will I collect?
Can the students communicate their learning?
As educators we now have an opportunity to look at our impact on student learning and achievement in a different way. If the focus is on connecting student learning then we can challenge our students thinking in a deeper way. In his post last week my colleague Chris Horton talked about the SOLO taxonomy and the connection of surface to deep learning.
Dr. Hattie would frame connecting and communicating up in two questions:
What is your impact?
How will you measure it?
Research has shown that relationships have a large impact on the learning of students. The notions of impact and communication are very closely related. In order to make an impact with a student you need a positive relationship and that relationship is grounded in effective communication.
It is important to keep all these ideas in mind when communicating with students, staff, parents and the community. We need to take the time to stop, reflect and ask ourselves are we connecting or just communicating?
Josh Kurjata
“Talk is cheap. Everyone does it. The question is, how can you make your words matter and influence any outcome and how can you really connect with others?”
Connecting for me comes down to a couple of main ideas. I believe in order to make a difference you need to establish a relationship with that person or group of people. If they don’t trust you, or feel you care, then you won’t be able to connect. The second piece is we need to take time to listen. Maxwell sums it up as, “Don’t fall in love with the sound of your own voice.” Although we think what we have to say is important the greatest ideas are born out of 3 or 4 other great ideas.
According to Dr. John Hattie, teachers spend 70 – 80% of their time talking in their classrooms. To put that into context, in a high school, the average class length is 80 minutes and teachers spend 75% of their time talking. That means that on average teachers spend 60 minutes a class talking.
Now I realize this does not apply to everyone but statistically speaking it’s a fact.
Reflecting on this as a classroom teacher I have the following questions:
Why do I talk so much?
Who is listening to me?
Why am I doing all the work?
What I notice about these questions is that they are all teacher-focused and not centered around student learning.
What I should be asking is:
What is the evidence of student learning?
What forms of assessment will I collect?
Can the students communicate their learning?
As educators we now have an opportunity to look at our impact on student learning and achievement in a different way. If the focus is on connecting student learning then we can challenge our students thinking in a deeper way. In his post last week my colleague Chris Horton talked about the SOLO taxonomy and the connection of surface to deep learning.
Dr. Hattie would frame connecting and communicating up in two questions:
What is your impact?
How will you measure it?
Research has shown that relationships have a large impact on the learning of students. The notions of impact and communication are very closely related. In order to make an impact with a student you need a positive relationship and that relationship is grounded in effective communication.
It is important to keep all these ideas in mind when communicating with students, staff, parents and the community. We need to take the time to stop, reflect and ask ourselves are we connecting or just communicating?
Josh Kurjata