Write subject line last

Earlier this month I promised a short post about subject lines. The short version of the post is, develop the habit of writing the subject line of any email LAST. Writing the subject line last is a good learning strategy and a good time management strategy.

In the Dec. 3 post I wrote, “[Three Little Words] does force the reader to pay attention to what is most important. It is a bit like writing the subject line of a message in an online discussion thread or in an email--the short subject line forces the writer to think about what is most important.”

By writing the subject line last, you can always be sure your subject line reflects the most important information in your email, which is a good learning, thinking, and communication strategy. A good subject line can even entice the reader to actually READ your email.

Writing the subject line last is also a time saver.  If you have ever accidently pushed the send button before you finished writing an email, you know it took you as long--or longer--to write a second email as it took you to write the first partial email message. In the second email you had to explain your error and finish writing the message you intended to write in the first place.  If you accidently push the send message before you have finished the message and you have not written a subject line, your email cannot be sent! How simple is that for a timesaver tip!?

We will talk more about the importance of writing a good subject line and provide some examples next post—next year, 2015. 

Three little words

In the last post we talked about the importance of knowing your own first steps to learning.  Highlighting is one first step for many students.  Summarizing may be a first step for others. Some use summarizing to overcome the challenge of paying attention. Students may use summarizing techniques such as explaining information to a fictitious person that does not know the material or using sticky notes to summarize each paragraph.

Has anyone tried the summarizing technique of "Three Little Words"? "Three Little Words" is a technique that forces the reader to get to the heart of the message. It is a challenge to summarize the material into exactly three words. Consider starting with summarizing each paragraph, but moving on to a larger chuck of material such as a section or page.

It seems artificial and awkward at first, but it does force the reader to pay attention to what is most important. It is a bit like writing the subject line of a message in an online discussion thread or in an email--the short subject line forces the writer to think about what is most important.

Tell us how “Three Little Words” works for you. 

Next post will be a short one on subject lines. Stay tuned. 

Most important step

In the last post I promised to discuss time-saving, Return On Investment strategies for learners. As a teacher, I like to use what I think are “big bang for my buck” strategies to put learners in position to learn best. By “big band for my buck” strategies I mean strategies that take little time to create and/or facilitate and return robust learning for the students. In other words, my ROI is big—little time and big learning.

Learners can develop their own time-saving, ROI strategies to facilitate their own learning. So the first step is to notice how you best learn.

One of the best time-saving learning strategies is to determine which is your personal best learning strategy. Choose your most important first step.
Marking is one of the most important steps to me. It is important to hightlight important information so you can go back to the information, review it, and build on it.  I have to always remind myself to be selective in what I highlight. When I am reading a hard copy text, I have a tendency to mark too much material as important and then reviewing still takes too much time since I have too much marked.

The biggest mistake beginning highlighters make is to highlight too much information. Always highlight phrases rather than sentences and limit yourself to no more than three most important phrases per page when you first start highlighting.

Highlighting via electronic methods has a real advantage for me since I can unhighlight a phrase or sentence when I find something else more important than what I had previously highlighted. I cannot unhighlight when using a regular highlighter--my regular highlighter does not have an eraser.

Next post we will narrow the highlighting even more with a technique I call “Three Little Words.”

In the meantime, I invite you to share your personal most important step here. 

Time well-spent asking questions

There really are dumb questions. Teachers used to tell their students that there are no dumb questions with the intention of encouraging their learners to ask about what was unclear to them. Dumb questions are out there, though--they are questions to which the asker already knows the answer—and more than 80% of classroom questions are questions to which the teacher/asker knows the answer. Teachers ask factual questions to which they—and many of their students—already know the answers.

Fewer teachers are now asking those dumb questions. Today’s excellent teachers ask questions that can be described with a different “D” word—deep. Deep questions are about what may be unclear to even the teacher, that take critical thinking to answer, and are worth the time it takes to delve into the answers. To increase the Return on Investment, teachers are now getting into the habit of asking questions to which they do not know the answer. The ROI will be deeper critical thinking and more robust classroom discussion.

 In the last two posts, I provided information from the Aptos California High School website, http://www.aptoshs.net/cliq9. We have discussed high expectations and building trust. Today let’s turn our attention to asking questions with high ROI. These questioning strategies take no more time than asking questions that have factual answers but reap far deeper results—not just for low expectancy students, but for ALL students:

The teacher asks questions of ALL students with the same frequency and depth. Teachers could even keep an official record of the students asked each class period.

Teacher makes sure ALL students’ questions are answered at the same rate and with the same depth.

Teacher makes sure ALL students are asked challenging questions. A technique I use when a student is reluctant to respond, is to encourage by asking, “If you had to guess, what would you say?”

Students notice the expectations:

When asked, students say the teacher expects everyone to participate.

When asked, students say the teacher asks difficult questions of every student.

Asking deeper questions takes no more time that asking the other “D” questions. Develop some questions that can apply to almost any content. Some of my own go-to critical thinking questions include

·         How would you compare …? contrast …?

·         How would you explain…

·         Based on what you know, how would you explain …?

·         What would be your own original way to …?

What deeper questions have you developed for your classroom that increase ROI?

Next post we will discuss ROI strategies for learners. If you have a favorite strategy for learning, please share it here.

ROI for building trusting culture

Happy school start, all. 

As promised, here is more information from the Aptos California High School website at http://www.aptoshs.net/cliq9

These strategies are the gold standard for developing the trusting culture that supports learning—not just for low expectancy students, but for ALL students:

The teacher exhibits behaviors that demonstrate value and respect for…students.

The teacher provides…students with nonverbal indications that they are valued and respected:

• Makes eye contact

• Smiles

• Makes appropriate physical contact

The teacher provides…students with verbal indications that they are valued and respected:

• Playful dialogue

• Addressing students in a manner they view as respectful

Teacher does not allow negative comments about…students

Students notice the expectations:

When asked, students say that the teacher cares for all students

Students treat each other with respect

In May I called these ideas, “high-impact/low-time-consuming strategies.” Think of these strategies as equivalent to the business term, ROI—return on investment. In other words, the teacher makes a high learning return with a small time investment—my kind of strategy.

Have a great start to the year. I will include more ROI strategies for teachers in the next post and then switch to ROI strategies for learners in future posts. 

Communicating high expectations takes little time

In the April 12 post, I talked about watching successful people and asked you to notice what successful learners and teachers do. While watching and learning from others, we can figure out ways to adjust our own work and make it better but not by taking any more time.

On the Aptos California High School website at http://www.aptoshs.net/cliq9 I found  high-impact/low-time-consuming strategies that teachers use to communicate high expectations during class discussion:

The teacher probes incorrect answers of low expectancy students in the same manner as he/she does with high expectancy students.

Teacher asks low expectancy students to further explain their answers when they are incorrect

Teacher rephrases questions for low expectancy students when they provide an incorrect answer

Teacher breaks a question into smaller and simpler parts when a low expectancy student answers a question incorrectly

When low expectancy students demonstrate frustration, the teacher allows them to collect their thoughts but goes back to them at a later point in time

Students notice the expectations:

When asked, students say that the teacher won’t “let you off the hook”

When asked, students say that the teacher “won’t give up on you”

When asked, students say the teacher helps them answer questions successfully

In the next blog, I will share more ideas from Aptos. What might you share that you see successful learners and teachers doing that takes little extra time?

Watching successful people

In the last post, I quoted Gretchen Ruben. She is a successful author best known for her book called the Happiness Project, http://www.gretchenrubin.com/about/ . 

We can all learn habits from watching successful people. Pick out one or two people that you have opportunity to observe.
Pay close attention to what these successful learners or teachers do that makes them successful. For instance, notice how they respond to others, how they organize their workspaces, what books they are reading, or how they manage their clocks.  

Now ask yourself, what can I do that these successful people do?

Procrastinating

In the January 17 post, I mentioned that setting a small goal of working on a task for 10 minutes has been helpful to me and usually spurs me on to work longer on that task. Other experts mention similar ideas. Gretchen Ruben calls the ideas “suffer for 15 minutes.” Here is an excerpt from Ruben’s blog about procrastination that I found to be too true.  I have found her “suffer for 15 minutes” tip to be helpful.

What parts of her advice have you tried or what would you like to try?

Working might be procrastination Gretchen Ruben

I keep track of all my Secrets of Adulthood—the lessons I’ve learned, with difficulty, as I’ve grown up.

A very helpful Secret of Adulthood is: Working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination.

When I have to do something I don’t want to do, any other task seems irresistibly enticing.

Sometimes, this tendency can be productive. I may not have gotten that piece written, but my office is clean, my errands are done, and I’ve cleared out a lot of email.

The problem is that—yes, I’ve been productive, but not in the right way. That piece still isn’t finished!

These days,  I’m careful to be honest with myself about what “work” I need to do, and I recognize thework-as-procrastination excuse. I’m also wary of the related tendency: busy-work-as-procrastinationexcuse. Re-formatting a document isn’t writing! Unfocused reading on the internet isn’t research!

When a task is truly horrible, I sometimes tackle it with the resolution to Suffer for 15 minutes.

How about you? Do you procrastinate by working—by cleaning, organizing, answering emails, cruising the internet, making plans, or the like?

Retrieved Oct 9,2012 http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121005143024-6526187-working-one-of-the-most-dangerous-forms-of-procrastination

Reprinted with permission. 

Simple, specific, small

In the last post I discussed the positive power that closet goal setting has for me.

However, that post reminded me that most goal setters need the opposite. Rather than keep goals to ourselves, most find that public declaration of a goal and outside motivators such as family spur us to achieve our goals. 
So whether a goal is private or public, a goal setting staple--the three S's—will help anyone achieve a desired goal. The three S’s of achieving a goal include keeping it simple, specific, and small.

Keeping goals simple, specific, and small make them achievable. Achieving a “Three S” goal spurs us on to working toward the next goal and soon the simple, specific, small goals add up to achieving a major goal.

An example might be to set a goal of working on school work for 10 minutes each school day for three weeks. Once we have achieved that goal, the next goal would be to turn in assignments on time. The next goal would be to earn a B in the course. The next goal would be to earn at least a B in the next set of courses. The next goal would be to earn enough credits by the end of the school year to be half way to a diploma...well, you see where this is headed.

What examples can anyone share about successes in setting short goals that led to success in major goals?  Goal setting cannot be separated from time management. We will continue to discuss the topic of goal setting and time management in the next two posts. 

Closet goal setting

In this morning’s comic strip, Dennis the Menace said, “The best thing about the New Year, Joey, is we can all just start over.”

It is time for me to start over and to renew my commitment to write a blog post at least once a month. One of the SMART goal elements states that a goal is more achievable if we set a time frame. The SMART goal formula also states that missing a deadline is not an excuse to abandon important goals.  See more about SMART goals in my October 9, 2013 post, “Some things bear repeating.”

I have missed some of my self-imposed deadlines over the past few months, but will not use that as an excuse to abandon by goals. 

Here is my first blog post for 2014:

Many goal-setting experts contend that sharing a goal or making it public makes it easier to achieve. I have NOT found that to be true in my own life. I have had more success as a closet goal setter. The goals I have kept private or partially private have been more successful for me. For instance, I kept my doctoral program progress private from my family and friends until I was at least half way completed. At that point I told my parents but refused to let my mother tell extended family members until I had positively defended my dissertation. Of course, sometimes I have been forced to set goals in a semi-public format such as an annual work review or a team wellness challenge. I always set those goals on the low end and privately challenge myself to supersede the goal. For instance, if I set my team wellness goal to walk five miles a week, I privately set a goal to walk eight miles.

This closet goal setting has worked well for me in the past. I have not seen this method published anywhere. Has anyone else? Has there been research done? Are any of you closet goal setters? If you have had trouble keeping goals in the past, try closet setting. Share your experiences here.