Photo by Brad Davis | The Republic Josh Toland, a C4 welding instructor, front, is shown participating in instructional rounds at C4.
Language arts teacher Heath Harrison raises his hand and forms the shape of a pepper shaker on a Thursday morning at Columbus East High School. He instructs his class of 20-something students to do the same.
“What do we want to do? …We want to pepper our essays with textual evidence! You gotta pepper those bad boys, let’s go!”
In tandem, Harrison and the class mimic an enthusiastic seasoning of some sort of imaginary dish, in this case one administered by the College Board.
“Give the College Board as much textual evidence as you possibly can!”
It may seem a little goofy, but the students seem to get a kick out of it. And once it’s time to write their AP essay this winter, they’re likely to have an image in their mind of their teacher in front of the class, “peppering,” and remember to be sure to give a dash of textual evidence under that essay prompt.
It may seem like a small thing, but it’s Harrison’s way of engaging his students in a way that’s fun, while also getting his point across.
It’s a strategy that could be used by some of BCSC’s newest C4 teachers who spent a morning last week doing instructional rounds, observing their colleagues to glean different things they could very well incorporate into their own classroom.
Many C4 instructors did not go to college to become a teacher, but came to be one after spending many years in their chosen profession.
The instructional rounds are part of an intentional process BCSC tailored to provide some of the skills and experiences that a traditionally-trained teacher would have been on the receiving end of in college, C4 Director Gene Hack said.
Over the course of about two hours, four of the newest C4 teachers, organized as a cohort, engaged in professional development in the form of open brainstorming sessions, Zoom calls with other C4 instructors, glimpses into non-C4 classrooms and concluding with a debrief to rehash what they all observed.
Each are assigned a more-experienced teacher as a mentor and required to complete five instructional rounds, or visits to other teacher’s classrooms, during their first year. Last week they crossed three of those off the list with visits to a social studies, English and science classroom.
Josh Toland is one of those new C4 instructors. After spending 22 years in the Army, he now teaches welding at McDowell Education Center and Columbus North.
“I was looking for something else to do and a lot of what we do in the military is teaching,” Toland said. “And so it kind of felt natural.”
He spent the second semester last year as a student teacher and is now in the midst of his first year teaching the class.
Toland is pursuing his initial Workplace Specialist I license through the Indiana Department of Education, which allows those with occupational work experience in a vocational area to teach that at a high school.
“The last 20 to 30 years it’s been go to college, go to college, go to college, and I think the trades are needed right now,” Toland said. “… We don’t have as many people as we need to build infrastructure, and so I like being able to provide that skill for students that are getting ready to go into the field, because college isn’t for everybody.”
While college may not be on his students’ minds as of now, as was the case for Toland when he was younger, he emphasizes the importance of the dual college credits his class can provide.
“You may not want college right now, but you may later on,” Toland said. “Learn your hands-on skill but you may need to come back to that. Everybody gets older and eventually learns what you know is just as important as how you know it and how you do it.”
Toland and the other three teachers started their day with a session led by C4 Assistant Director Shane Yates, who took them through a discussion about different teaching strategies, beginning with ways to start class and get student’s attention.
“Our goal this morning is to get a nugget, or a couple of nuggets, that (the new C4 teachers) can take away to apply tomorrow, or even this afternoon in their classes,” Yates said.
Brett Vanderkolk, who spent decades in the finance and banking industries, currently teaches C4 business classes and came to the profession after retirement as a way to give back.
When asked about his means of getting class started, he demonstrated how he rolls a podium to the front of the class, gives a quick ‘Ok, let’s get started,’ and then pauses for about 10 seconds to give them a chance to settle down, “kind of like a preacher.”
Yates said some elementary teachers will clap a few times, which students then repeat, although he pointed out that high school kids probably wouldn’t be into that as much.
Then the cohort did some role-playing, talking through the best ways to communicate with a parent whose child may be struggling in some way.
Over Zoom with fellow C4 teachers, now in their second year, the cohort discussed strategies for addressing phone use, lesson planning and how to build relationships with students to foster a positive classroom environment.
Some mentioned “the front porch method,” where a teacher stands at the door of his or her classroom greeting students as they come in or just pass by.
“I like to try to be at the door, to kind of read students as they come in and greet them,” said Chad Cooper, who teaches automation and robotics to C4 students. “I think when you see a student having a rough day, it’s good to go over and talk to them and just see if they’re not feeling well— they’re not always going to tell you, but just to acknowledge that you know they’re having issues is a big plus, that they know you care.”
Then it was time for Toland and Vanderkolk to pop into three classes for 15-minutes each, starting with Tasha Orgass’ social studies class where she was teaching a lesson on ancient Greece.
The two noted the low light levels in her room, which Orgass said was to keep the environment more comfortable, and her use of a bell-ringer, or short activity for students once class gets started in the form of an attendance question.
In a debrief later, the four new C4 teachers discussed how Orgass’ students were clearly aware of the routine and expectations that she had set for class.
Next came a visit to Heath Harrison’s room where students were signing up for presentation dates and discussing upcoming AP essays that they will write in a couple of months.
The cohort identified that Harrison clearly has a good relationship with his students and talked over the best ways to engage those in class.
The final stop was to Anne Owens’ chemistry class. The class spent 10 minutes on equations and left the room to head to a large shared lab space at East.
“As soon as they got to the lab, they all knew their stations because this was a lab that was a continuation,” Toland said after the group reconvened. “They all knew where their stuff was, they went in there and immediately started working.”
Although the classes they visited can seem like almost a different language in terms of subject matter, there’s a through-line through them all with elements they can bring to their own students, the group agreed. And going forward they can rely on those that came before them for support.
“We’re all here for you, everybody’s here for each other, Angela Emmitt, C4 culinary arts instructor, told the group earlier in the day over Zoom. “I love this group that we’ve come into, I truly do, just the unity and the knowledge that you get from others, no matter big or small you think an issue is.”
