No matter how well we know mathematics, we will never master the classroom before mastering both ourselves and our relationships with students. During this interactive workshop, we adapt Stephen Covey's world-renowned habits for professional effectiveness directly to our roles as teachers and to student-teacher relationships in the classroom.
14. Reactions driven by feelings about
our conditions
Proactions driven by purpose to
maximize effectiveness
15. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing:
the last of the human freedoms
—to choose one’s attitude
in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one’s own way.
18. Reactive Teacher
1. If only my students studied more...
2. If only my students showed as much
interest in this class as they do their
phones...
3. If only the new administration would
stop changing things every five seconds…
19. Proactive Teacher
1. How can I get passionate about
teaching?
2. How can I love my students?
3. How can I adapt myself to fully
support my colleagues and
administrators?
20.
21.
22. Write down & share what you’d want a
student to say…
24. Mission
Achievements
Contribution
Character
Character: Daily, I deeply respect my students and what
each individual brings into the classroom.
Contribution: I work hard and
exude positivity toward my
students as we explore statistics
using collaboration and
technology.
Achievements: Together, we reach a powerful
understanding of and appreciation for
statistics while building each other up.
26. I feel enormous
satisfaction and
excitement when I can
respond to questions
that challenge my
teaching style with
wisdom, love, humility,
and patience.
27.
28.
29. What one thing could you do
(something you aren’t doing now)
that, if you did it on a regular basis,
would make a tremendous positive
difference in your personal life?
30. What one thing in your role as a
teacher would have tremendous
impact?
Write that down and share!
31. First Three Habits
1. Proactive: We are the creator and in
charge.
2. 1st Creation: In the Mind, we begin
creating.
3. 2nd Creation: In the Body, we act out
our envisioned, principle-guided ends.
32. The key is not to
prioritize schedules
but to schedule priorities.
33. Time Management
Urgent Not Urgent
Important
1. Urgent
&
Important
2. Not
Urgent
&
Important
NotImportant
3. Not
Important
&
Urgent
4. Not
Important &
Not Urgent
38. Emotional Bank Deposits
• Understand each student
• Attend little things
• Keep commitments
• Clarify expectations
• Show integrity
39.
40. The Winning Matrix
I Win I Lose
You
Win Win-win
Cooperation &
Collaboration
Lose-win
Self-subjugation
You
Lose Win-lose
Competition
Lose-lose
Retribution
41. Win-win
• Seeks mutually beneficial, mutually
satisfying solutions
• All feel good about the decision
• Cooperative not competitive atmosphere
• One student’s success is not at expense of
others
42. 5 Dimensions of Win-Win
Integrity
Maturity
Abundance
Mentality
Support Systems & Processes
Reward
Win-win
Foster
cooperation
Perspective Key Issues
Acceptable
solution
New paths
Character
Trust &
Credibility
Transformational
Leadership
Relationships Agreements
Desired Results
Guidelines
Resources
Accountability
Consequences
The Character Ethic, how success was defined before 1926, focused on basic principles of effective living (next slide) and claimed that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness through embracing these principles.
1776 – 1926: Research on success shows the following traits as markers of success in general. All ***character traits**** whereas later research in success focuses on ***personality*** traits.
What do you think about how these traits apply to teachers? Modesty and humility? Is it easy for the paragon of knowledge to embrace modesty and humility? Is it necessary?
Business calculus class
Private Victory: 1, 2, 3Public Victory: 4, 5, 6Renewal: 7Start with private victory, mastering oneself, before tackling the harder public victories. We need not be perfect – will never be perfect – in 1-3 before moving on, but we need some level of personal mastery in 1-3 to be able to do 4-6.
Viktor Frankl learned his idealism as a Jewish prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp, while he was being starved and tortured and as he watched nearly everyone he loved die.
Viktor Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”“Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive.”
When you hear:
Close your eyes.
You are walking up to a funeral service. Everyone you see you know, but they are all a few years older. You wonder who desperately who is in the casket. Who do you think it is? It is you, just three years from today.
Imagine several are giving your eulogy: a student, a friend and colleague, your chair or dean, and your closest family member. What do you want each of them to say?
(Click to animate) Write down what you’d most want that student to say about you, in your wildest dreams and most wonderful imagination. What have you done for that student? What have you meant to her? How have you changed her life for the better? What were the things you did that she will never forget?
Character: Who we strive to be.
Contribution: What we strive to give.
Achievements: What we strive to reach.
(All of these should be based on our idealized self whom we saw in our eulogy. Envision that person. Create that person in our minds. And write that person’s character, contribution, and achievements.)
Character: Who we strive to be.
Contribution: What we strive to give.
Achievements: What we strive to reach.
(All of these should be based on our idealized self whom we saw in our eulogy. Envision that person. Create that person in our minds. And write that person’s character, contribution, and achievements.)
Close your eyes once more and this time visualize a scenario that you struggle with over and over, your greatest repeating struggle. Something that is so frustrating and that you wish you’d handle better.
How could you handle it better? What would your role model do? How can you react wisely? How can you align your actions with your core principles of who you are and how you want to be valued?
My biggest challenge is that I teach with a flipped classroom style with tons of active learning, collaboration, technology, and hard work - all things that my highly non-trad military-based students have rarely if ever encountered in other classes.
Be Proactive
Begin with the End in Mind
Put 1st Things 1st – put these primary principles as the most important things in our lives!!! Make every decision based on what is most important.
Which category should we be striving to spend more time in?
Quadrant II: Emphasize 2 by saying no to 3 and 4. By focusing in Quadrant II, Quadrant I actually shrinks because of what is called the Pareto principle: 80% of results flow from 20% of activities. Your crises and problems would shrink to manageable proportions because you would be thinking ahead, working on the roots, doing the preventive things that keep situations from developing into crises in the first place.
Quadrants III and IV: These quadrants are things that aren’t important. Stop wasting time there!!!! When we say ”yes” to QIII or IV, we are saying “no” to QII and “no” to effectiveness!
Time management should give 1) emphasis to Quad II, 2) Coherence to our mission and ends, 3) Balance to life, 4) People-centeredness, 5) Flexibility, and 6) Portability.
Personal integrity: don’t gossip but encourage criticisms to be openly shared so they can be resolved.
There are situations where you want to be competitive and self-subjugate, but for any scenario where we want an atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration, we want win-win.
Desired results (not methods) identify what is to be done and when. Guidelines specify the parameters (principles, policies, etc.) within which results are to be accomplished. Resources identify the human, financial, technical, or organizational support available to help accomplish the results. Accountability sets up the standards of performance and the time of evaluation. Consequences specify— good and bad, natural and logical— what does and will happen as a result of the evaluation.First, see the problem from the other point of view. Really seek to understand and to give expression to the needs and concerns of the other party as well as or better than they can themselves. Second, identify the key issues and concerns (not positions) involved. Third, determine what results would constitute a fully acceptable solution. And fourth, identify possible new options to achieve those results.
Tweaked from Covey’s affirmation statement to make this my own.
Evaluate—agree or disagreeProbe— ask questions from our own frame of reference
Advise— give counsel based on our own experience
Interpret— try to figure people out, to explain their motives, their behavior, based on our own motives and behavior
Rephrase Content & Reflect Feeling: You seem frustrated and angry with the hypothesis testing section. You wonder why others value this branch of statistics. You believe hypothesis testing does not have value in the real world.
As math teachers, this process might seem just so wrong because we aren’t answering questions and solving problems!!! But what if a student hasn’t asked a question? There is no question mark above. If the student has not asked a question, they probably don’t want an answer; they probably don’t want a solution. What they are seeking may be just to be heard, just to be listened to, just to be sympathized with. If a question comes later, we can answer it better if we first only listen and affirm our listening until that question comes.
Your student sees a circle. You see a square. There can be alternative facts! There can be alternative truths. Operate on the assumption that your students are telling the truth as they know it. Only after you’ve sincerely tried to see and understand from their perspective can you effectively communicate your own perspective while understanding why the two perspectives are different. And then as we understand, consider advice where both sides, both perspectives, win: win-win.
What
Increased effectiveness when 2 or more work together.
The whole of the 7 habits are much greater together than they are separately, for example. There is a building, a synergistic effect. We need Habit 1 to help with 2, 1 and 2 to build 3, and the private victories to build the public ones.
Synergistic relationships emerge out of relationships where both parties have experienced high levels of trust and cooperation, typically after some severely emotional experience has bonded the individuals together. We can create an atmosphere where synergy is possible when we build, foster, and develop the 7 habits in ourselves and in our students, but even that is no guarantee that this magic will happen. When this magic does happen, though, when synergy is truly achieved, it is a beautiful, powerful experience.
Pair: Have you ever been part of a synergistic experience? Share what that was like.“The key to interpersonal synergy is intrapersonal synergy, that is synergy within ourselves. The heart of intrapersonal synergy is embodied in the principles in the first three habits, which give the internal security sufficient to handle the risks of being open and vulnerable.”
If we all see the world as it really is, we see it the same, and we have the same opinion. We must value the differences in each other and the different perspectives to reach a new, better understanding of our shared world.
How long would it take this person to chop down this tree? Would the work go faster if he used a sharp saw or a dull one? If he only had a dull saw, would it be worth his time to first sharpen?
If we all see the world as it really is, we see it the same, and we have the same opinion. We must value the differences in each other and the different perspectives to reach a new, better understanding of our shared world.
Physical – getting enough exercise; eating right; sleeping well; managing stressSocial & Emotional – practicing empathy; focusing on synergy; working on service
Spiritual – value clarification; study and meditation
Mental – Reading; visualizing; planning; writing
Mental, physical, and spiritual renewal foster and develop and grow out of our private victory over the first three habits. The social and emotional renewal follow naturally as we daily try to implement Habits 4, 5, and 6.
“The more proactive you are (Habit 1), the more effectively you can exercise personal leadership (Habit 2) and management (Habit 3) in your life. The more effectively you manage your life (Habit 3), the more Quadrant II renewing activities you can do (Habit 7). The more you seek first to understand (Habit 5), the more effectively you can go for synergetic Win/ Win solutions (Habits 4 and 6). The more you improve in any of the habits that lead to independence (Habits 1, 2, and 3), the more effective you will be in interdependent situations (Habits 4, 5, and 6). And renewal (Habit 7) is the process of renewing all the habits.”