Incorporating Japanese Specialists into the Units of Inquiry

Identifying the Shared Leadership Challenge

I am a 1^st grade teacher at Canadian International School (CIS) and have been at the school for four years. A shared leadership challenge that continued to catch my eye was getting specialists more involved in my units of inquiry. Because we are a Primary Years Program (PYP) school, we are required to teach six transdisciplinary-themed units per year. Within these six weeks units there is supposed to be support and instruction coming from specialists like: the Physical Education Teacher, Librarian, Japanese teachers, Music teacher and/or the Art teacher. Not all of these specialists need to be involved with all six units of inquiry, but there should be at least one specialist who assists in delivering the unit of inquiry when at all possible.

Right now, for example, the unit of inquiry we as a class have just completed is titled “Maps and Me”. The Japanese teachers were supposed to be assisting with helping our class gain a deeper understanding of the central idea of: “Maps help us organize and understand our world”. At the beginning and throughout most of the unit, their input had been limited due to time constraints and a busy afterschool schedule bogged down by various afterschool commitments, ranging from clubs, committees, and staff meetings. I do have a PYP coordinator who has helped to arrange meetings between specialists and teachers in the past. Without stepping on his toes, I felt like we could make a better effort to incorporate some of the specialists into our units of inquiry. I also felt that this should not just improve with my classroom, but it should be improved throughout all of the K-6 classrooms. I agree with Lambert (2003) who pointed out the importance of commitment to a shared program, or else “wonderful classrooms operate next to poor ones” (Pg. 6). I knew that if I was able to successfully integrate the Japanese specialists a bit more into my unit then the PYP coordinator would possibly be open to expanding the protocol we used to other grade levels.

Compared to previous years, I did feel the school was trying to get specialists more involved this year as our units of inquiry and our PYP program were up for accreditation by the International Baccalaureate Organization in Mid-November. In past years there were hardly any meetings that included specialists and homeroom teachers collaborating towards a goal. However, even with the push for more involvement this year, I still felt that there was not enough planning time and coordination between the specialists who are supposed to be helping me deliver the given unit of inquiry. I wanted to work on this leadership challenge facing our school, as this has an important impact for students being able to make thematic connections across different disciplines. As McDonald, Mohr, Dichter, and McDonald (n.d.) highlighted in The Power of Protocols: An Educator’s Guide to Better Practice, teachers in Japanese elementary schools collaborate with their colleagues to design lesson plans, while continually developing and making these plans better over time (Pg. 3). The authors go onto cite how Tokyo University Professor Manabu Sato saw this collaborative professional development, which is often done on a voluntary basis, as the driving force for the success of Japanese elementary schools (Pg. 3). I agree with the concept of getting more teachers to look closely at contributing towards moving students towards a central idea/goal and I hoped to make it more of a realized outcome at Canadian International School.

Initial Possible Solutions to my Leadership Challenge

Focusing on the goal of my leadership challenge, the first thing I thought I would have liked to accomplish was arranging a time in our busy schedules to meet with the Japanese specialists to discuss how students are performing with the assessment tasks we discussed in our first meeting earlier in the unit. At this meeting I envisioned us looking at student samples of work from both my lessons and theirs. As McDonald, Mohr, Dichter, and McDonald (n.d.) pointed out, “our efforts to explore student work together are crucial to our efforts to revise and improve the collective work of our educational institutions” (Pg. 4).

Another potential solution to my leadership challenge lied in setting up a protocol for us to work through. McDonald, Mohr, Dichter, and McDonald (n.d.) introduced the wonderful idea of a Collaborative Assessment Conference that has been taking place at Harvard (Pg. 80). I thought that the PYP coordinator, the Japanese teachers and myself could sit down and go through the protocol as we look at students work. McDonald, Mohr, Dichter, and McDonald (n.d.) cited Steve Seidal as saying this protocol has four purposes (Pg. 80). They are as followed:

The first is to enhance teachers’ perceptions of all their students’ work by honing the teachers’ perceptual skills. The second is to encourage depth of perception by demonstrating all that can be seen in a single student’s work. The third is to encourage a balance in perception- the habit of looking for strength as well as need. The assumption behind this purpose is that a teacher can address need only by building on strength. The fourth purpose is to encourage conversation among teachers about what the work shows and how they can act individually and collectively on what it shows in order to benefit their students. (Pg. 80-81)

I was hoping we could use this protocol or even perhaps another protocol, just something that could help us advance our student’s learning.

Taking Action

The goals of arranging a meeting time with my specialists and setting up a specific protocol for these meetings were something I felt I could accomplish. I knew that by choosing to strive for these goals I would be putting into place a framework that could possibly be used for other grades throughout the year. I also knew that I would be helping to improve relationships between the Japanese specialists and homeroom teachers. Block, Byrk & Schneider, Lambert et al. pointed out that it takes two or more to make a working relationship and that the trust and affirmation that are central to relationships come about from each person’s ability to trust and respect one another (as cited in Donaldson, 2006, Pg. 137). I believed that by attempting to open the communication line then there also was the 2 for 1 effect of also developing trust and respect amongst the Japanese teachers and myself. Donaldson (2006) also discussed the dangers of a culture of autonomy and individualism and how it feeds divisions and hostilities within a faculty (Pg. 38). Over my four years at Canadian International School, homeroom teacher’s daily interactions with Japanese specialist’s year-end and year-out seemed mostly contained to hellos and goodbyes. Things have been professional, but there certainly feels to be divisions between the Japanese teachers and homeroom teachers. By working more closely with the Japanese specialists I hoped to serve as an example of what we could do as homeroom teachers to integrate them a bit more into our learning/teaching experiences. I also aimed to show how we can foster more teamwork across subject areas and in the same breath help to start breaking down some of the departmental divisions that have plagued the school.

With regards to the protocol for our meetings, I decided to focus on the Japanese model of study for our protocol. I chose this instead of the Collaborative Assessment Conference because it allowed for different modes of collaboration that included the important teaching observations. According to Stigler and Hiebert, (1999) there are six principles in the Japanese model of study (as cited in FIPSE, 2007, Para 4). They are as follows:

1) expect improvement to be continual, gradual, and incremental; 2) maintain a constant focus on student learning goals; 3) focus on teaching, not teachers; 4) make improvements in the context (of actual teaching); 5) make instructional improvement a collaborative effort of teachers; and 6) build a system of instructional improvement that can learn from its own expertise.

Using this as a framework to lead my Leadership Challenge, I sat down with the Japanese specialists who work with my children and told them of this protocol and my goal of implementing it to help us with the maps unit. The PYP curriculum coordinator and the elementary vice principal were also able to attend. This gave me the chance as the meeting facilitator to promote a wider-range of participation. I was also focused on ensuring equity and building trust, something at the heart of properly facilitating a protocol (McDonald, Mohr, Dichter, and McDonald, n.d., Pg. 15). McDonald, Mohr, Dichter, and McDonald (n.d.) also discussed the importance of discussing the agenda, knowing a little bit about everybody else, and setting some group norms (Pg. 18). As I was just on time for the meeting in my room, I noticed that all of the stakeholders seemed to have been there for five minutes or so discussing and chatting about things in their life. Seeing this, I felt that everybody was getting to know everyone. After joining them and sharing a few laughs over the amount of people who were able to come to the meeting (a bit surprising the VP, Curriculum Coordinator and both Japanese teachers made it), I explained the agenda of talking about what has worked well in our classrooms thus far and what lesson plans we could create for the upcoming week. I then showed the Japanese model of study to give them the idea for how and why we were here. All stakeholders seemed interested in using the Japanese model of study as the framework for our meeting, and it basically guided the meeting. It also helped to establish the group norms, as after all of us read the Japanese model of study, we understood that we would be collaborating and that all voices present had a say in what was to be decided. As the facilitator, I also said that we should all feel comfortable and make comments or suggestions as we look at some previous plans, student samples and during the drafting of new plans.

After discussing the agenda and setting the norms, I asked if one of the Japanese teachers would like to share how they have incorporated maps into their classrooms. One of the Japanese teachers volunteered and showed how she had made a map of Japan with Velcro and had her Japanese as a Second Language (JSL) student’s match the different island names in English and hiragana, the basic Japanese alphabet, to the correct island. As she works with only three of my students, there was a wide-range of agreement around how this was not only developmentally appropriate but setting wise as well. Also, since we only had met briefly afterschool for ten minutes a couple of weeks back to discuss how they could help out with the unit, I had no idea that this was the activity she had chosen to do. As I mentioned in the meeting, it actually correlated quite nicely to the lesson, learning center and eventual quiz I gave students the previous week. They had to name the different islands in English, so she was assisting with that particular learning goal and I had no idea! All basically due to the fact we only had met once over the previous 5 weeks and it was rather short and hurried due to the student-led conferences happening in my room. I was even further surprised when our Japanese as a First Language (JFL) teacher shared the same fact, that she too had been working with the kids on the island names in Hiragana. In our previous ten minute meeting they received a couple of ideas from the PYP coordinator and myself on how to incorporate some of the unit ideas and lessons, but again, I was never clear on how or what they would choose to do. So the fact we were all sitting down together explaining what we had done with our kids had really put us on the same page. It also helped to explain how seventeen of the nineteen kids got a perfect score on the quiz I gave the week before, with the other two children only missing one of the island’s names on the quiz.

After taking in this good information, I then showed everyone the work I had done in developing the unit attitude of confidence, as well as showing some student samples of landmarks they recognized in their towns and communities in the surrounding Tokyo area.

Next, as on the agenda memo I typed up before the meeting, I explained some possible ways the Japanese specialists could become more involved. Our PYP coordinator chimed in and made the important point that we need to wrap this unit up in a week so the focus should be on one of the summative assessment tasks. We all agreed and there was a consensus to go ahead with the idea of doing a treasure hunt at the local park in Japanese and English, where kids would make a map of the park and would mark on the map where the treasure is. We would also have a session where the students would be asked to find the candy via directions that included north, south, east and west. The JSL teacher pointed out that perhaps her kids would not be ready to follow these kinds of directions and asked if she could use my community map and have JSL students practice giving directions to one another. We all thought it was an excellent idea. The JFL teacher communicated that she wanted to not do a treasure hunt at the park but something similar. At times, it was difficult for her and the other teacher to effectively express themselves in English, and this was one of them. She attempted to explain and we had a rough idea so it gained consensus and she was given the nod to go with her activity. I explained I would engage in the process of making an English map of the park and going for a treasure hunt at the park in English. I also decided to practice their ability to listen to directions at the park as well.

Following our chosen protocol and placing the importance on teaching not teachers, I told them of my desire to come and observe a couple of lessons and how we could focus on the teaching and subject material to make it better. I also gave them the option to come and view one or a couple of my lessons, but they are unfortunate in the sense they do not have preparation periods during the day and are required to teach Kindergarten through 12^th grade. The administrators were busy as well during my chosen class period and would be unable to give me feedback on my particular lessons.

Forging ahead, I set up a meeting for the following Thursday to discuss what worked well and what we could improve on instructionally, as key component of the Japanese model of study. Everyone left the meeting feeling happy with the progress that had been made and seemed excited by the prospects of working together the following week. The Vice Principal thanked everyone for their professionalism and seemed very happy to be participating in his first curriculum meeting with the PYP coordinator, a homeroom teacher and specialists. He usually does not get involved with the curriculum, so it was a nice change for him as well. It was funny too as over the next couple of days my rapport with the Japanese teachers starting to move beyond simple hellos and goodbyes. We started sharing jokes in the morning before class. As our professional collaboration improved, so did our personal relationships.

Lambert (2003) pointed out, “when a staff has undertaken skillful work using inquiry, dialogue, and reflection to achieve student performance goals that a school can be said to have achieved high leadership capacity” (Pg. 5). I am starting to feel that from our simple meeting that included some inquiry, dialogue, and reflection that the successful taste of this meeting could lead to school wide leadership capacity at some point and stage. The fact that we had a couple of administrators and teachers communicating from different divisions that typically do not, all working collaboratively towards increasing student learning, is certainly a step in the right direction.

The Final Stage of the Leadership Challenge

To see how the Japanese teachers were implementing the maps lessons into their Japanese classes, I observed both the JFL and JSL classes. I observed the Japanese as a Second Language (JSL) teacher first and she did follow through with her intention of improving her student’s ability of following directions on a community map. She first gave simple directions in English followed by what the word means in Japanese. For example she would say “left” in English followed by the Japanese meaning of “hidari”. She followed that with a “Simon Says” game for the directions, where kids had to point “hidari” or right “migi”, and this really got the children engaged. She then went onto highlight some of the things on the community map, like library and gave the Japanese definition of “toshokan”. She pushed for vocabulary of similar landmarks like “bakery” known as “pan-ya”. They finally practiced taking directions from the teacher and used their hands on the map as they moved from landmark to landmark. In her second hour long session from the JSL teacher they made a “magnet-man” and used this magnet-man or magnet-woman to move from place to place on the community map. She also moved the children onto north, south, west and east directions.

I observed the JFL teacher as well and for the first lesson she did not incorporate maps into her first lesson plan of the week, so that threw me for a bit of a surprise. At the meeting we (PYP coordinator, Vice Principal) thought that perhaps she would make something for her outdoor activity the following day during the class, like a Japanese map of the park, but again I could see that her ability to speak English and my ability to speak Japanese had led to a bit of a misinterpretation. She did however go out to the park for her second lesson of the week, something that did get communicated. During her first lesson she also communicated that she would need me to bring the children’s English maps and some candy and this is something I did to accompany her lesson. She took the kids to the park and placed them into color coded teams. The teams, using the park map I made in English, then attempted to locate different landmarks like the swing and water fountain. Once there, they found a key word for their team in Japanese and they wrote it down on their piece of paper. From there, they read directions in Japanese telling them where to go to find their next clue. The idea was after they found the key word and the directions for where they needed to go next, they would look at the map and go to the next landmark in the park. Once at the park, I could see what she was trying to explain during the meeting in action and was able to get a much more accurate picture of how her lesson helped with our inquiry into maps. Hence, I truly did see the power of the Japanese Model of Study as the principle of focusing on teaching had helped me and eventually others get a better grasp of how we are attaining our summative goal.

After their lessons and after I did my part for the unit which included the partner treasure hunt at the park and listening to north, south, east, west directions, we met and discussed how things went. The Japanese teachers first explained what they worked on in the lessons. After their explanations I attempted to use the Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI) model as a guide for what I observed in the Japanese teachers classrooms (Center for Creative Leadership, 2006). For the JSL teacher, I described the learning situations I saw the students in, the behaviors such as “Simon Says” and the impact this had on student learning. I explained that I felt her selected learning activities had a very positive impact on students getting a deeper understanding of the importance of maps as the students seemed deeply engaged. I then suggested that perhaps in the future she could write down the Japanese vocabulary in romanji (Japanese-English) or basic Japanese. She explained how one of the Japanese directors of the school instructed them to not have the kids in JSL write the Japanese word down in romanji or Japanese. The policy of JSL teacher’s not teaching writing instruction was something that my PYP curriculum coordinator nor I had any knowledge of.

I then attempted to provide SBI feedback to the JFL teacher. I explained the learning situation at the park and the behavior I witnessed from both the students and her during the activity. I explained specifically that the situation where students had to write down the key word at the given landmark was a source of excitement and sound attention for the students involved. I explained that I felt at times only certain members of each group were assisting with this process and that others seemed to be running about the park looking for the next landmark. I explained I felt this impacted some of the group member’s feelings as some were trying very hard to accomplish the task correctly as a team and others were going about the task in their own way. She agreed with me and even referred to the time when one of the group members crying was probably due to a lack of team collaboration of working towards the learning. We concluded that next time it would be important to set ground rules of staying together as a group and explaining to students they may only walk at the park. We also made the conclusion that students would benefit from being reminded to look at their map during the activity.

The meeting wrapped up with the PYP curriculum coordinator admitting how impressed he was with how their deepened involvement helped in achieving a deeper meaning of the central idea of how maps help us understand the world around us. He apologized to the Japanese teachers, but he said, “This was so good; we are going to have to do this for the next group of teachers you will be assisting”. We then looked at the yearly planner of who they were scheduled to help next and saw that it was the Grade Five classroom. I could only smile as I could see that the Japanese Model of Study protocol would have a positive impact on not only my classroom, but that it would also have a positive impact on other classrooms this year as well. It also made me think about what Donaldson (2006) pointed out with regards to nothing “convinces busy educators that they should work together better than seeing that it makes each person more successful” (Pg. 106). I think my PYP curriculum coordinator saw how incorporating the Japanese specialists into our unit of inquiry helped to make each of us a bit more successful.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I have learned that if one introduces sound research into an educational setting and gently asks others to utilize it, then good things can happen for not only staff but also students. By introducing the Japanese Model of Study protocol to the administration and Japanese teachers, I was able to improve the Japanese component that fed into my unit of inquiry. Not only that, by introducing the Japanese Model of Study protocol and inviting the PYP curriculum coordinator to come take part in it, he will now carry the torch onto other grades for the rest of the year. This is something that will have a positive effect on school wide student learning and something that will most likely improve working relationships between the Japanese teachers and Homeroom teachers. Halverson (2005) made the point that a professional community results from “intentional coordination of social interaction among teachers through the design of structures in practice” (Pg. 3). I would like to think the intentional social interaction I helped to create during my Leadership Challenge will help us add more color to our professional environment at Canadian International School. In conclusion, I am very happy with how my Leadership Challenge has progressed! It is a positive reminder that “actions” really do “speak louder than words”. Creating the experience firsthand really gave me a greater appreciation of not only reading excellent educational research, but it also made a strong case for putting this research into action.

References attached below