On October 12, 2016 I gave the Power Up Lecture (PUL) at a municipal elementary school in Saitama City. The workshop was attended by teachers and part-time lectures teaching Saitama City’s Global Studies program.
4 Proposals
At the start of the workshop teachers were invited to share the things they found most challenging about the Global Studies program. The list that emerged included the following: 
- Not being able to find enough time for meetings
- Not having balance between teaching partners in lessons
- Assessing students
- Development of teaching roles
In response to these 4 proposals were made. Teachers were invited to experience these first hand through the workshop.
Proposal 1: Develop Routines and Make them Explicit and Public
While some teachers may see this as creating paper work or regulations where they are not needed, this has an important effect. By putting basic routines, such as planning meeting procedures, in writing and making them a matter of public agreement has a freeing effect. For newer teachers it removes the need for them to make these decisions, allowing them to focus on the more important issues. Veteran teachers are freed from supporting these younger teachers in their choices as well.
A second reason for this is that it creates a level of objectivity in our work. Finally, it guards against the changes that come when teachers move in and out of schools. Below is an example.
| 〇〇小学校へようこそう | Welcome to 〇〇 Elementary School |
| A. あなたの勤務時間は＿から＿です。休憩時間は＿から＿です。 | A. You working hours are from ____ to ____. Your break is from ___ to ___. |
| B. 児童と給食を食べる時に、３０分早く勤務終了してください。その前に教頭先生に確認してください。 | B. When you eat lunch with the students, you can leave school 30 minutes early. Please check with the vice principal first. |
| C. 生徒と日本語を話さないでください。もし、日本語を理解することができる、できないフリしてください。これは大切なことで交渉しません。 | C. Please don’t speak Japanese with students. If you understand Japanese, please pretend you don’t. This is very important and we must not change this. |
| D. 学年で打ち合わせします。その後、代表の先生はあなたと打ち合わせします。 | D. We will have meetings in our grade, then a representative will meet with you. |
| E. いいアイディアあれば、教えて下さい！ | E. If you have ideas please tell us! |
| F. ただし、レッスンの内容・活動を変えたい場合、一週間前に教えてください。 | F. If you want to change the lesson plan, please tell us a week before the lesson. |
| G. あなたの助けは期待しています！ありがとう！ | G. We need your help! Thank you! |
Proposal 2: Before talking about the lesson, do the activities as students
When teachers begin talking about lessons, they will quickly use the entire time allotted for the meeting discussing the fine points of a single activity. Such discussion can be invaluable in teacher learning, but leads to marathon planning sessions or incomplete planning. The point to this proposal is that teachers read and understand the lesson plans individually before meeting. When the planning meeting starts, teachers play the role of actual students they teach. They do the activities as if they have received enough instruction to be successful at them. In doing so, teachers will naturally see issues that will arise in the lesson, and instruction that will be needed to see that the students succeed.
During this training session the teachers were able to try this for themselves. The result was that through “doing” the activities teachers were able to see the need for specific instructional moves.
Proposal 3: After Doing the Activities Talk about the 3D’s
Teachers were then introduced to the 3D concept (which can be seen here).
This concept asks that teachers discuss the most important points of lesson planning. These are (1) a detailed description of what success looks like, (2) a common understanding of how different levels of success will be praised/instructed, and (3) a plan for implementing that instruction/assessment in the lesson.
Proposal 4: Think Unit, Not Lesson
One of the major roadblocks to effective implementation of the Global Studies program is a lack of clarity of units of study. During this workshop teachers were introduced to the concept of unit based instruction. The development of the elementary school curriculum for Global Studies so resulted in unit formation based on themes (such as sports). Many, however, are a collection of thematically related activities that do not build toward the development of clearly defined skills and abilities throughout the unit.
Teachers were introduced to several examples of units that were planned with these ideas in mind.
An excellent text for building such units is Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe