In my house, we are huge fans of Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel (we call it “Yucky Jobs”). I saw his name pop up in my iTunes library the other day in my TED Talks subscription and I wondered what this was going to be about.
Rowe speaks of two elements that arrived in his mind at a moment that no one can likely relate to. These elements, anagnoresis and peripiteia, which I am sure I once used in a literary analysis back in the day, both deal with Aristotelian tragedy. Anagnoresis, which is a literary device used to show how the protagonist moves from ignorance to discovery, Rowe used to describe the awakening he had at the moment when he was illuminated by his faulty reasoning, and peripiteia, the point in a tragedy whereby the tragic lead realizes the irony of the moment he or she is in (think Oedipus realizing that his wife is not who he thinks she is), he shows us that there may be a whole string of faulty reasonings that underpin his belief system.
Heady, I know.
The idea that it takes a moment of unexpected clarity or irony to show us our flawed assumptions is scary, in that we could last a long time in our own rut until that moment occurs. Rowe’s ultimeate discovery is that he feels he should challenge all of his “platitudes.” For example, in the talk, Rowe points out that if people took the advice and “followed their passion,” we would have a whole lot of economic difficulty within this country. See this pig farmer’s story. Rather than follow a passion, what if we just “looked and saw which direction everyone else is moving in, and moved the other way.” What if we just analyzed situations to find where the needs were, and acted upon that?
His ultimate understanding was this:
As I watched the talk and gained a new appreciation for Mike and the show, I did what I always end up doing–I related it to my own work. What if the ideas I hold dear in education, the very things I have been focusing on over the last few years, are wrong?
It made me go back to my notes from BLC last summer. I’ve mentioned this before, but on the last day of the conference I hadn’t planned on attending Dr. Pedro Noguera’s keynote, but I ended up there. Three things I wrote in my notes were triggered by what Rowe talked about:
Too often we use this equation: Talking=Teaching.
We shouldn’t be asking what does good teaching look like, but rather what does good learning look like.
We need to connect the way we teach to the way they learn.
I hadn’t thought about Noguera’s ideas that much lately, and hearing Rowe talk about anagnoresis and peripiteia brought them back. What is it about education that causes you to lose focus on the big ideas that should be driving you? I’d like to shift the focus onto student learning; I’d like to be listening to students the way Ryan has been and getting feedback from students on how they learn best, and I’d like to share that information with teachers that will act on it. These are the types of discoveries that lead to real change.
I am guilty of trying to find out what “good teaching” looks like through my observation of teachers. Perhaps I should have been looking at what the students were doing.
I have learned a great deal from my monthly meetings with the English department: how to lead, how not to lead, how to completely miss the mark on what teachers need, and how to recover beautifully from missing said mark. However, one of the simplest things, I have found, you can do for teachers to aid them in their professional development, is to listen carefully and then deliver on what you hear.
On Wednesday, all of the above situations played out. We have often discussed having an expert voice come speak to us to help us drill deeper into an element of our craft. A while back, I came across an article by a Duke University professor, Dr. Bradley Hammer (who is how at UNC), that dealt with the shifts that were taking place in student writing in the “academy.” The title of the article spoke volumes: “A New Type of University Writing.” Now, my English department already thinks I have a massive case of technophilia, and inviting this professor who believed that college writing, long believed to be the epitome of thesis driven argumentative writing, was now transforming into another piece of the digital landscape, was a risky move. But, after talking to him on the phone in September, I knew he would make some waves of the good kind. And did he ever.
The teachers were very interested in hearing about trends he saw in student writing, in essence asking for feedback on what he thought of Freshman entering the program. Dr. Hammer didn’t disappoint in his response. Most of his work, he stated, is deconstructing what the students come in with. For example, he stated that 15 years ago, it was common for students to arrive at the college campus with very poor argumentative skills: weak ability to write strong theses, very little support for arguments in their writing. Now, they all arrive knowing how to “do the essay.” Formulaic, straightforward positions, support at all the appropriate turns, and of course, an adherence to the five-paragraph format. His work is to get them away from “doing the essay,” to caring about the essay.
His work is about teaching students to deconstruct their own biases in their writing so that when confronted with a traditional topic (he used abortion in our our conversation as an example) the students would begin to generate questions about the factors that define the topic rather than automatically deciding which side of the argument to sit on. For the students in his writing class, it’s not about whether or not you can convince someone of something, but rather that you get an understanding of yourself through an issue presented to you. His greatest line, by far for me, was this:
High schools train students how to argue–they need to learn how to ask questions and interrogate ideas first.
As soon as he said it, I immediately began running thumbing through my mental Rolodex to try to remember how many times I have heard that in my reading over the last two years. It just rings. Whether it’s been caused by federal mandates or by our poorly thought out responses to them, we’ve underestimated our students ability to be meta-cognitive about the writing process. It’s more about the process rather than the product, when we truly break it down to it’s smaller parts. Is it really imperative that little Suzy write her essay in five standard paragraphs with a neat little thesis hook at the end of her first paragraph? Or would we rather see her wrestle something down to it’s bits in the pre-writing and research stages and produce something in three paragraphs? I’ll take the scrapping any day.
What was great for me, aside from the fact that it was a meeting where I did very little direct talking, was the dialog that sprung up after our call ended. Some of those in the room were in agreement with Hammer; we should be focusing more on the meta-cognitive processes of writing. Others asked if the reasons Hammer and his colleagues are able to do the deconstruction with students and push them in the direction they do is because of the argumentative underpinnings that high school English teachers provided them with? Can they get to B without having gone through A? Others asked if there was a way we could see products of the freshman Hammer worked with; we wanted to see what inquiry-driven writing looked like in the end.
The most challenging element about working with the four departments I do is trying to find something for each of them to sink their teeth into, and this did it for the English teachers. My own personal belief about what compositional writing should like look at any level is very simple: writing should demonstrate your ability to think, and your ability to convey those thoughts succinctly. My answer to the departmental question about whether or not we should be doing the things that Dr. Hammer does in our classrooms is undeniably yes. But, like anything, let’s allow the students to determine the level to which they can successfully do it. Just because they are 16 doesn’t necessary preclude them from inquiry, and the same can be said in reverse for some students. Push where needed, pull back when necessary.
I am banking on one very important thing this year: that the use of publicity will continue to raise the tide of change and lift more boats.
For the last two years, I have managed a district technology blog called Tech Dossier. This year, I have reconstituted it thanks to a few posts by Miguel, but changed it slightly. First, the name: from Tech Dossier, to The Dossier. I truly want to move away from the inclusion of the word technology in any of the titles I use. Through several conversations with people like Barry Bachenheimer and Patrick Chodkiewicz, I’ve come to realize that semantics matter, especially to teachers. It’s not about how to use technology when you teach, but rather it’s about how you can teach, period. Second, to match the semantic shift in the title, the focus of the articles has now broadened to include topics that are not solely technologically based, but rather a highlight of some of the innovative practices our teachers are using. We have teachers in all of our buildings who constantly push their thinking and their students thinking. I’d like to get there and find them; the rest of the district, and the world at large should be seeing what they are doing.
I’ve enlisted several people to write over the two years, and this year we’ve added a second-grade teacher from one of the elementary schools to the list of authors. We’ve got three administrators, two high school teachers, a middle school teacher, a tech coordinator, and now an elementary teacher writing and looking out in their buildings for ingenious ideas. Also, being no stranger to shameless promotion, I send out a bi-weekly email highlighting all of the posts that have appeared. I am trying to get a feed service to send it to our global address book, but somehow I think that may either get flagged as spam, or individual teachers would not recognize it as an important message and just delete it.
The idea of doing some reporting, let’s even call it micro-reporting due to the short nature of the posts, on what is going on instructionally within you building is a gold mine. While our commenting has been limited so far, our stats are through the roof, so I know people are going to the page. At this point that’s all I want: people to know that others are out there looking for them, trying to catch them being competent and taking risks.
Head on over to The Dossier, and check out what our teachers have been up to.
My months are rigidly divided into three parts: elementary school meetings, middle school department meetings, and high school department meetings. These are my set dates for which I prepare for. Each department that I supervise has unique (and often pressing) needs by the time I meet with them each month. This morning I met with the world language department at the middle school, who, due to a change in schedule is now meeting with all of their students on a daily basis, whereas beforehand they saw 6th grade every other day and 7th and 8th grade every day. Needless to say, there is some adjustment going on and emotions are high. Their new schedule has them teaching 30 minutes instead of 40 minutes, yet on the whole for the year their student contact time is higher–confusing, I know. What they had expressed concern over was that loss immediate class time. And, if you add in student passing time between classes that 30 becomes 25 or less.
My approach to them was simple: how can I give you back more class time? The reality is that I am not involved at the building/scheduling level; I can’t physically give them back more time. I showed them how to create screencasts using Jing. The thinking behind this was simple in that if they were losing up to five minutes of their class time to passing time and administrative tasks, was there a way that they could ensure that students had the resources to reconstruct that missed time?
There were a few assumptions here:
That teachers will create the screencasts: I was asking them to give up “outside of class time” to create these.
That students will watch them.
Both assumptions are not mutually exclusive. Teacher buy-in and student buy-in go hand-in-hand when it comes to the success of any change in the norm. If I didn’t wrangle the teachers today in some capacity, there is no way the students will ever see these things. Here’s how I ran the class:
I showed them what was familiar to them on their tablets (our world language department all have tablet pc’s): Word, PowerPoint, and Journal.
I showed them how to ink on those programs.
I launched JIng and screencasted.
I played it back.
I asked someone to verbally repeat my steps.
I asked them to begin the download process for Jing (slow network).
I asked each of them in turn to come to my tablet and create a mini-cast and publish it.
We laughed at each other.
Lots of “I’s” but also plenty of “we’s.” There were many times throughout were I would have succumbed to dwelling on what is not possible in the classrooms, but for now, I wanted to focus on something they could do to be pro-active to increase their instructional capabilities. Screencasting allows them to say that there are resources available to the students at ALL times.
There is one thing that most every person that has ever met me may agree with: I am not much for rocking the boat. My admission of that has never met with much discernment from myself, as I have often taken pride in that ability to remain objective. Yet, in reading this quote, first in Dave Dimmet’s Leadertalk post, and then again in Miguel’s weekly recap, a smarter part of me took offense to my usual behavioral pattern.
What’s wrong with discord? In this position, which I cannot call “new” anymore, I am constantly faced with opportunities for constructive discord, and I have found that over the course of the first 10 months in this position, I have often either pacified, avoided, or circumvented opportunities for disagreement. Why? Let’s see what happens when disagreement happens in front of me. What will it mean if I help people who disagree come to terms with the fact that they disagree? I am going to go with Dave’s advice here and see what happens. I’ll report back on the state of that idea.
“Now that we’re aware ChaCha exists, I can assure you that we will begin
discussion of a formal policy to prohibit cell phone use in classes,”
said Gerard O’Sullivan, vice president for academic affairs at Neumann
College in Delaware County, Pa. He said most professors already
prohibited cell phone use in class.
Let’s rule out something before it is examined. Sounds highly anti-academic to me.
My wife and I went to his back to school night last week anxious to see his school and meet his teachers. For us, it was like reconnaissance: my wife is also a teacher and her back to school night was coming up and we needed ideas. Plus, our son is close-lipped about school, always answering our questions with “I don’t know.” As we sat there, cross-legged at “circle time,” I took some mental notes, and I also started recalling the back-to-school nights I had lived through in the classroom. What I remember, and what became apparent to us as the blood rushed from our feet under the weight of our adult bodies, was that the more time I spent on rules and regulations, the less everyone was engaged, including me.
What do we want to know when we enter our child’s classroom? Do we need to know that the penalty for chewing gum is a wearing it on his nose? I think we have to take a page from good presentation skills here: if they need to know my rules, I can provide them on a handout. What we wanted to know as we entered his classroom was what he did when he wasn’t with us.
His teacher did a masterful job of this. We sat like preschoolers and followed their mini-schedule. She moved as if we were the kids, showing us the actions she makes as she instructs; every action is mirrored by the words used to describe it. We got to know her and who she is. We spent time imagining our son working and interacting with the same things we were.
We are in the midst of back to school night time for most of us here in New Jersey. Our district is going through them this week. When you plan for our back to school nights, I hope you all think about what you would want as a parent. For my wife and I, we wanted to be able to see how he would interact in that environment, and we wanted to know that he was in a supportive environment.
These are the things I would want to see as a parent in my child’s classroom:
Be Genuine. Be who you are with the parents of your students. They want to know that there child is learning, is challenged, and is supported. By showing them your true self, it helps them see those things.
Don’t give us your resume. If you are standing there in front of the room, we’ll assume you are qualified. If parents ask about your credentials, you might have bigger problems on the horizon.
Show samples. Student work on the walls, of course, but also show us examples of lessons they are doing currently or will do in the future. What I liked most about our preschool visit the other night was that I now know what is on the horizon and what I can expect him to be doing in a class period on a given day.
Be Gracious. You have big class sizes. You have 130 students over the course of the day. They have one child in one room at one time. Understand that they are singular in focus, as you would be too.
So, there I was, watching this great advertisement from Nokia:
during Darren and Clarence’s presentation at BLC (third link to both of them in three days–I promise I am not link-stalking), when things began to unfold.
I needed data for this.
We are opening the school year with our Connections class, a second language arts class focused on problem-solving and writing as a thinking tool. What we are really having difficulty with is the fact that the students may struggle with the format of the class; getting an “A” will require strong habits of mind and a focus on proving that your answer has merit. We’ve stripped out grading for grammar and spelling, we’ve focused our assessment on process thinking, cooperative group discussion, portfolio defense, and for lack of a better word, “out of the box” thinking. Getting the students on board immediately is imperative for any class, but for this one, which they are already viewing as “2nd English,” is crucial not only for the success of this year, but also for the success of the program.
There is a part in the video, which I hope you took the time to watch, where the narrator talks about how the 3rd screen privatized our lives and learning, but the 4th screen freed us to venture outside and do the things we love. My gears were cranking. I’ve admired the work Darren has done with the use of imagery in math, but what really struck me about him was his outsourcing of the legwork of the photography to his students. Two of my favorite things right there: atypical assignments and student-created content.
What could we do with this information? Well, here was my hook: How many of your students have cellular phones? How often do you text per day? Does your phone have a camera? Video? Does your phone have the ability to access the internet? What do you use more often in the course of a normal day: cell phone or computer? How could you use your cell phone to help you learn?
The idea would be to have the students compile data using a survey tool like surveymonkey, surveygizmo, or our in-house survey software. Once the data is collected, a whole slew of possibilities open up:
Use the texting data to demonstrate how we communicate most and discuss reasoning behind this. Compare this to a survey of the teaching staff.
What does the data comparing the computer v. cell phone usage say?
What ideas do students have for the use of cell phones in class?
The ability to have students create the data, analyze the data and then let it “incubate” as Ewan McIntosh stated, make this one a go for me. Very beta right now and as I look at the questions there, they are in sore need of some higher level revision. The power of what is in their pockets is, as I remarked to my colleagues in our notes, game-changing. Again, as I sit here and write this, I can’t help but think of the almost Draconian rules that exist in some parts of our buildings regarding the use of mobile devices. This idea, aside from the student inclusion in the creation of the lesson, may serve to break down some barriers for us. One can only hope….
I imagine there is a post or several brewing from all of this, but here some quotes I pulled from our admin team’s notes (via Google Docs) today:
Some great quotes from our notes from the conference:
” what simple tools can make learning become remarkable -” “you only need a handful of staff on board to move things forward”
“do teachers enjoy learning?”
“schools don’t encourage divergent thinking. Social networks – no deadlines, no stress, to a big crowd.”
“We need to teach kids to escape. Kids aren’t afraid to experiment with technology – they understand that they can’t “break” it.”
“To be successful in school, you have to be convergent. To be successful in the world you have to be DIVERGENT.”
“If we want our students to learn it deeply, they need to be able to teach it.”
“Unscripted – talk, write, have the students do critical thinking on the spot, showcasing the student, choosing the right vocabulary words, authentic assessment, gives the student an active role in their OWN learning.”
“what do we push to next?- creating the need for more people to embrace this and try the things that are out there and more importantly keep technology as the vehicle to get to the places we want students to go-technology should never replace best practices and good teaching”
“We should teach children to drill through content to find audience and purpose.”
“Filtering: we are not protecting our students in the way we think. We may actually be handicapping them.”
“Good idea for creating our own faculty search engines. We do this now but its done by teachers linking sites from their own websites.”
In a few hours, myself and a team of administrators from my district will be boarding a plane for Boston to attend the Building Learning Communities conference. If you are a somewhat regular reader of this blog, you may already know how often I reference Alan November’s ideas and what an influence he’s been on my practice. When I pitched the idea for us to attend, way back in April, I didn’t anticipate all of the us going, but I am glad we are; it will be nice to see the reactions of my colleagues to some of the ideas that will be circulating.
The last few days have been interesting for me here. On Saturday, I had the great opportunity to talk about new teacher induction programs with Steve Kimmi (the conversation was recorded and can be found on Steve’s blog or on the EdTechTalk site). When Steve emailed me and gave me the list of topics that we might get to, it was a big one, and my preparations for the conversations led me to do some deeper thinking than I had done in a while–nothing like a deadline to get you motivated. Steve’s idea was this:
We will be discussing how to prepare new teacher’s for today’s classroom and 21st century skills. There are a lot of resources that attempt to define 21st century skills, so I will list the one’s that I am privy to. However, this will also be discussed.
21st Century Skills:
Digital Literacy
Global Awareness
Collaboration/Communication
Problem Solving/Inventive Thinking
So I knew I needed to formulate some ideas about them, and it coincided nicely with the direction I was heading in as we approached BLC.
New Teachers and 21st Century Skills
When I saw this heading, I thought immediately back to some of Jeff Utecht’s posts about interview questions for hiring of new staff. What should our incoming teachers be versed in technologically v. what can we expect to teach them in the induction programs and in working with them over time? This dichotomy gets at a few things I feel are important. When new teachers arrive at our offices and classrooms, we expect them to have licensure and credentials as certified by the state and have passed through a teacher training program at a university. I know nothing of what teacher training programs look like these days, only what the products of those programs, the new teachers we hire directly out of college, show us when they arrive for interviews or as new hires. As Jeff stated in his post from last spring, we need to be a bit more stringent in what we are asking of our new teachers. This is much easier said than done when we consider the amounts of schools out there that will open in September without a full staff due to the inability to find qualified applicants; however, for my own personal experience, I don’t think it’s enough to expect that a teacher have a basic understanding of the trends in education, rather, I feel they should be on the cutting edge having come from a teacher training program. They should understand the power of networked learning, of the use of mobile technologies, and the utmost importance of critical thinking skills and collaboration among both their students and their colleagues.
“If you believe in changing education, who are you working for now, the students and teachers of today or the students and teachers of tomorrow?”
In the conversation with Steve on Saturday, I mentioned a story I heard via a comment on the “Uncle Bill” post in which she relayed a story that Alan November told audience at the Learning 2.0 Conference last year in Shanghai. In it, Alan spoke of how Plato struggled with ideas espoused by the current educational system in his day and railed against those in control of it in order to have it changed. In the end, his conclusion on how to change it was simple: wait for all of those in control to die.
That’s not exactly an option we have; I think of all of the students that would exposed to new pedagogies, all of the teachers that would not come to know the power of a network that can be tapped into constantly and one that can be added to at the same rate. Steve said it best in the discussion when he referenced the fact that we cannot give up on trying to help teachers develop lessons steeped in 21st Century literacy because what if students have a teacher that uses new methods successfully and exposes them to the use of new tools and transforms the way they learn, only to have a teacher the following year who does none of that. Does that put the child at a disadvantage? I don’t have that answer–reason being is that I don’t exactly know what the variables are yet. What does good teaching with new tools and new pedagogy look like? Are we at the point yet where one way trumps the other. I have visions of Dan Meyer floating in my head here: are we trying to re-invent something that is already invented?
What this calls for, this change we keep referring too, is a change in the vision of our educational leaders. I am excited to meet up with David Truss this week and get into his head about leadership, and with Dennis Richards to look at what type of vision for schools of today we can forge.
More to come as the week progresses.
Image Credit: “lead type” on jm3’s flickr photostream
I was just trying to respond to Bill’s comment on a previous post and then this happened:
Bill,
As always, a great question. I have to tell you, that very same question came to us very soon after we introduced this class to the department that would be teaching it. The Language Arts department asked whether or not this class was a permanent class, or one that would be phased out after a few years (other changes had been made within the last two years to this department, and they were/are skeptical). Your question goes at the very heart of the debate about state testing: if classes are designed around state standards, and state assessments are designed to reflect mastery of state standards, what happens when your students don’t perform well.
From reading your writing, I know you often struggle with this issue of having your students learn a great deal, but not perform where they are “supposed” to on the state assessment. What we did when we designed this class was to remove that pressure from the design. We still have standards, but we are using standards from every core discipline (and some others) that the state of New Jersey standardizes. Only, we took the standards that we might call “Power Standards,” and used them. For example, one of the science standards we chose to write our curriculum around is:
” Habits of Mind
1. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of data, claims, and arguments.
2. Communicate experimental findings to others.
3. Recognize that the results of scientific investigations are seldom exactly the same and that replication is often necessary.
4. Recognize that curiosity, skepticism, open-mindedness, and honesty are attributes of scientists.”
We left these teachers with the ability to create a standards-based class, but give them a little leeway in their ability to cover broad topics and insert seemingly insurmountable problems into their students’ course of study.
So, to answer your question with a question, should low performance on state tests eliminate a class that is based on standards from every core discipline? My opinion is that it should not. In a perfect world, this class, aside from the obvious benefits of metacognition and critical thinking, would provide the students with an edge in the open-ended section of the tests–the section of the test that allows students to express their answers in a few ways, other than just filling in bubbles on a scantron.
This is what happens when you let really smart people see your thinking. I am glad I do this.
I’ll admit that my inner geek drives the direction of my reading lately; I tend to read Techmeme as often as I read Edutopia. However, one of my all time favorite reading topics has always been the direction and drama associated with mainstream media and its delivery to consumers. Odd, I know. Most people would say they love to read trashy novels, or scan baseball scores (which I often do), but not this guy. Give me an opinion piece about the future of participatory media, the changing of the guard in the newsroom, or something like this one from the New York Times:
For newspapers, the news has swiftly gone from bad to worse. This year
is taking shape as their worst on record, with a double-digit drop in
advertising revenue, raising serious questions about the survival of
some papers and the solvency of their parent companies.
and I am like the proverbial pig in…well, understood.
I don’t know if this story piques my interest for the usual reasons, but I know that it makes me begin thinking about the world that I am helping teachers prepare students for. It’s topics conjure up all kinds of reminiscences from last summer when we were all struggling to shrug off Andrew Keen’s attacks on connective writing and citizen publishing, and it calls to light the profound changes in literacy many of us have been discussing for several years.
Connection to Teaching and Learning
Often, I’ll find myself looking out at the vast expanse of my RSS reader and see similar topics being bandied about, and articles debated back and forth between individuals much smarter than me, and I’ll wonder where my connection back to the classroom teacher is–where is the correlation between George Siemens and the work he does, and the elementary teacher I work with who wants to differentiate instruction? Many times I find myself at a crossroads wondering how to find common ground for the theoretical applications I see, and the practical situations that teachers live through.
This article in the Times, amazingly, though obscurely, shows me a connection. When we look at the trends, just in the last two years (ad revenue dropped 8% last year, and is already down 12% from that number), that tells me that the sellers/advertisers are following their buyers/consumers eyes. With that, come so many negative consequences:
assimilation of major newspapers or ownership groups perhaps taking away a decidedly local flavor
massive job losses in the printing industry
ink-stained elbows on Sunday mornings
The last bullet above, while in jest, does reflect some sentiment that, if you dig on Nicholas Carr, you might agree with. We aren’t interacting with print media as often as we used to, and what effect will this have on our ability to read deeply? Moreover, the real impetus behind my writing this tonight was to truly ask myself what are we preparing our students to consume? Is literacy solely the manipulation of a texted page, or does it involve, as the article hinted at, the ability to decipher and decode the “vastly more choices” that online advertising offers to sellers?
So, I look at the classrooms I’ve been in this year and wonder, are we doing all that we can to prepare our students for a world with decidedly less printed paper than our own?
Positive Consequences:
Here’s another discerning thought that rises from this: how can we pull positives out of this development? As with any technology, it’s social ramifications are natural offspring. In this case, I see a lot of good coming out of the move to online news consumption:
greater opportunity for dialogue between writer/publisher and reader through comments and forums
Erica had just reminded me of Pink’s book yesterday as she wrote about being able to finish it on her way out to San Jose for the Google Teacher Academy. What this exemplifies is the shift away from one mode of production, to another that will involve some creative thought processes and a distinct need to train people in how to produce this new product. It’s examples like this one that really make me analyze what we are asking our students to do in our classrooms; are we preparing them for the classified ads of the future?
We’ve often talked about choosing the right tool to use for the right setting educationally, and now we’ve got some research to back it up. Recently, Laila Weir at Edutopia wrote about the results of a study done by the Metiri Group, and commissioned by Cisco Systems. The study was aimed at understanding how and when using technology in regards to learning works best. A lot of what came out of the survey is common sense, but some it struck me as I read it because I’ve been wrestling with this in my practice lately.
Weir writes about how the Metiri Group debunks the “Cone of Experience” theory, whereby:
each of us learns 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we
hear, 30 percent of what we see, 50 percent of what we hear and see, 70
percent of what we say or write, and 90 percent of what we say as we do
a thing.
The skinny behind the research here is that when teaching basic skills, like asking students to learn and memorize the chemical symbols on the Periodic Chart, the use of technology and multi-modal teaching does not raise student scores as much as a lesson that isn’t interactive (21 percentage points v. 9 percentage points). However,when more complex skills or concepts are being taught, there is a noticeable uptick in student achievement scores (32 percentile points for multi-modal learning v. 20 percentile points for non multi-modal).
During our sessions with our teachers participating in our tablet program a few weeks back, the topic of multi-tasking came up quite frequently. Some of them had said that while having the use of portable technology made them more productive, they always felt more compelled to work on something. That impulse often came in the middle of other aspects of their lives that didn’t include the processes involved in creative work. One teacher stated that they couldn’t get anything done because it always seemed they had way too much going on at once. Another teacher chimed in with a quote from an article about the fallacy of multi-tasking. As it turns out, the Cisco study also reaches the same conclusion about multi-tasking:
“New scientific studies reveal the losses in efficiency in . . . multitasking,” the Cisco report says. “Researchers find that thinking processes happen serially, resulting in delays caused by switching from one task to another. The delays become more pronounced as the complexity of the task increases.”
I can’t speak for others, but unless I have clearly defined parameters to work and think in that center on a singular idea, I can’t accomplish much. So, for me, I’ve always been one to shy away from multi-tasking. And when teaching complex processes, it makes logical sense to teach them serially, at least to me. It also follows from the study that when you present students with information in a clear, concise manner that flows logically they have a better chance at coming to grips with it.
But, perhaps the part of the article that will be most useful in my practice, is this:
if you never recognize or actually think about that audio input, you’re unlikely to remember it later. Translate that same concept to students simply letting the words of a lecture or a textbook wash over them, and the benefits of engaging a “working memory,” a deeper kind of thinking, are obvious.
Allowing for student reflection time about the lecture, and allowing for them to access various parts of their memories to create connections between this new information and the knowledge they already have has positive affects on learning. This may seem elementary to some, but it still makes me shudder a bit at all of the workshops I have given this year and last in which I presented a whole slew of information to people, and due to time constraints, moved right into something else without giving them time to digest.
What I’d like to be doing is to build reflection directly into the classes and workshops I teach. How do you do that successfully?
This class sounds like a jewel in the making. I’d love to know nitty-gritty (length? scheduling? vertical alignment?) if you’re willing.
I wonder this too: it was recently at a meeting of the minds educational panel (2004 NYS Teacher of the Year, 2008 NYS Teacher of the Year, and a former National Science Teacher of the Year) that I heard this put forth as a pedagogical touchstone: “Who owns the question?”
I thought of this as I read the list of questions your colleagues have drawn up– truly exciting and challenging stuff. Will these ideas exist with the leeway for students to determine their own critical inquiries?
In other words– in your proposed class, who do you think will own the questions? I’d love to know.
Dina’s question has been sitting on me for a few days, possibly weeks, now, and it’s not that I’ve been ignoring it, but rather gathering some resources to include in my response. One of the things I found was a recent post by Dr. Tim Tyson called Value Chain 2.0. Dina had asked who was going to own the questions that these teachers were proposing as essential to the unit of study, the students or the teachers? Tyson’s article asks a much similar question, but he refers it to “who owns the learning in the classroom: the teachers or the students? It also raises questions for me in the area of responsibilities shared by students and teachers. A while back I wrote about being impressed with Alan November’s idea that teachers should “outsource” a lot of what they do to the students. Tyson’s point about who is doing the thinking work in the class goes to that–are you doing all of the thinking, or are the students?
What I am struggling with, and I think it’s a struggle that all teachers and administrators will face in the coming years, is convincing and working with teachers to learn alongside their students, to model their practice for them, to fail in front of them, and to resurrect themselves in front of them. The key point I have been trying to drive home with the teachers I am working with is that this class should be designed around topics that both you and the students want to learn about, and that this class has unbelievable potential for personal learning. That being said, I like the idea that the ownership of both the learning and the questions be distributed evenly between the teachers and students. Student-centered? Teacher-centered? How about learning-centered? or inquiry-centered?
As with anything we do in education, there needs to be some structural framework to all of this, and we are ramming up against that pretty hard as we write the curriculum. Questions of assessment strategies keep arising being that we are stripping out all of the focus on conventions (spelling, grammar, mechanics) and focusing solely on thinking process and ability to express ideas. We are also running into the issue of how to structure this class on a daily basis, how do we set this up technologically (please, any classroom bloggers out there, we need your methods and practices that have been successful!), and what do we do to convince students that writing and thinking are not drudgery?
I am really digging the work that Scott McLeod is doing via his blog. Over the last few months he has recognized great commentors, blogs that deserve a bigger audience, and sponsored a button making contentst for NECC. But what really grabs me is his call to leaders in our field to “get it,” and do so quickly. This button sums it up for me. How are you making something happen?
How can you tell if your students, and in my case, teachers, understood not only the content you asked them to study and apply, but also your assessment itself? Our job is really simple when we get responses like the one below. We asked our new teachers to blog about their use of cooperative learning in the classroom in response to last month’s session on that topic. But we asked them to do it using the RAFT method where we gave them choices as to their Role, Audience, Format and Topic. The choices ranged from the traditional to the non traditional, as you will see here. Without further adieu:
Blackboard Rafting
Cooperative Learning R.A.F.T. – The blackboard speaks
Dear Resistant Teacher,
I know I’m kind of breaking the rules a bit here.
Most of the time you guys write to me. Or to be more accurate, you actually write ON me.
But I just wanted to shoot you a quick letter, and let you know what’s been going on in that idiot Jones’ class lately.
Some of this stuff has to be seen to be believed.
I know that you don’t really like Coop Learning, so I just thought I’d pass on this story to encourage you to keep a closed mind about it and keep all that mumbo jumbo out of your classroom. Believe me, it’s a complete waste of time.
You’re my last best hope. I know you’ve got the hard-headed sense to resist. Not like that damn hippie-wanna-be Mr. Jones. He actually buys into all that crap that Higgins and Sutherland keep pushing on him. What a loser!
So check this out.
Last week Jones is giving a test, right. Normal everyday kind of stuff.
But instead of cracking the whip and getting the kids to sit down, shut up, and work on their own – he’s got this whole touchy feely Cooperative Learning thing going on.
He has the kids playing some kind of review game. There all broken up into groups and coming up with questions to try to stump each other.
Of course, these little brats get all excited and start raising the volume. “Oh, I’ve got a great question!” and “Oooh, they’ll never get this one!” It’s like a 3-ring circus in here. Everyone talking over eachother, raising their voices, learning on their own! What the hell?
First of all, isn’t it the teacher’s job to come up with questions? And aren’t the students supposed to keep their voices down in a classroom? I mean - really!
What is Jones thinking? That slacker’s working the room, stirring the kids up, letting THEM do all the work, while he sits back and does nothing. And they actually pay him for this.
And here’s the best part of the whole thing: Not a word is written on ME. Not a word!
I mean, hey, I don’t want to sound like a prima donna or something, but everybody knows I’M the star of the show, here. Am I wrong? Did I miss something?
The information is supposed to get written on ME! All eyes are supposed to be on ME, waiting for what I have to offer. But no. Not in Jones’ class. Kids are coming up with their own questions, writing on their own sheets of paper, challenging each other – with Jones sitting off to the side like some high school drop out in need of some direction.
Sure, the kids are excited and engaged – but that’s not what school is supposed to be about. Has everyone forgotten what school is for?
Teachers teach and kids shut up, listen, and take notes. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
And the Blackboard should be filled with notes, not sitting up here empty and out of the loop.
Kids these days! They’ve got no respect. And teachers are the worst of all. Because they should know better.
Anyway, I’m glad to know that you’re not going in for all this crap. It’s good to see that some of you guys still know how to treat a black board.
Times are tougher than ever. The pressure is on from every angle – especially those young rebels Higgins and Sutherland. But I’m here to tell you…don’t give in. Stay strong, man. You’re our last hope.
I’ve been going through the comments left by the New Teachers the other day in their exit cards and I thought I would take the time to post them for review here. Regardless if they are read by a large audience or not, they are already proving useful to me. To continue along the “be the change you want to see in others” vein, the information we are getting from these comments is already shaping the format for next month’s meeting. What amazes me is how easy it was to elicit feedback that is useful to my planning. I remember being in the classroom searching for meaningful information to help me plan my lessons, and the last thing I thought of was asking the students what they thought and what they needed. But when I did, the results were exactly what I needed. I hope these are of some value to anyone who has been reading the last few posts.
“What I Learned:”
To have students come up with their own goals and feedback–triggers brain to work and students assess themselves
The information of timely feedback was very interesting. It makes sense, but it’s good to see the research to back it up.
I learned a lot of interesting ways to have students self-evaluate–mostly from talking to colleagues who are doing great things.
Students can effectively monitor their own progress and this form of feedback is strongly affective
Feedback should be corrective and provide discussion of why the response was correct or incorrect and what makes a response correct or incorrect.
There are some very creative and productive ways to modify my objectives and goals
Feedback should be immediate after a test
How important it is to have student input
How to incorporate several structures in a seamless way.
It is important to set flexible goals; kinesthetic learning is more fun
Student self-assessment is important and should be included in lesson planning.
Setting goals and objectives can be negative. Students sometimes miss the big picture.
There are many ways to set goals with students.
Feedback should be provided rapidly in various forms
Learned the RAFT technique
I learned that other subject areas have students self-assess in a similar manner. This is truly a universal method.
Goals are more effective when they are student driven.
I learned that there are many ways to get information across. I like incorporating the different styles of learning–kinesthetic, intrapersonal, verbal, doing group activities.
I have the students set goals and give feedback, but not consistently. In my class it could work to do it everyday. I could structure my class all around this if I remember.
Have students involved in setting the learning objectives.
The real importance of feedback and the timeliness of it.
Goals should not be too specific; allow students to personalize them.
To focus on making my goals attainable and not to forget that students should be involved in goal setting.
Give feedback in a timely manner
That goal setting in the kindergarten level is not much different than the High School level.
I learned that it is really important to provide students with goals for each lesson. I sometimes am not consistent when I do this and when I do remember, I know they get more out of the lesson. I also learned that timely feedback is important.
When given the opportunity, students can assess themselves and provide feedback to themselves directly. This is an example of becoming a mature person who is capable of self-reliance and growth. We should, as teachers, provide this often and encourage it in other situations.
I learned it was important to be more specific when providing feedback–target particular areas.
That goals need to be more personal.
Today I realized how important quick feedback is to students.
I learned how amazing it is that different grade levels and subject areas can use the same “modified” ideas to attain goals in student achievement.
The fluidity of groups to increase learning.
Importance of setting goals. Impact of immediate feedback.
I learned that it is really important to set specific goals in planning. I also learned that feedback is more influential in learning than I previously thought.
I found the idea of students creating their own learning objectives interesting. My curiosity is piqued about incorporating this into the novels I teach.
Corrective feedback has a “shelf-life” and if I wait too long, the lesson is lost.
Goals need to be more general and not too specific otherwise students get so focused on the specific goal that they miss out on the other learning.
New ways to include students in their learning and assessment.
The description of goal-setting is similar to backward design in the sense of general direction and fundamental understandings.
“What I would change:”
I think the structure of the lessons have improved already since September.
Wow, I liked actually trying the strategies rather than talking about them. I wonder if we could have some concrete examples of how teachers use goals and feedback.
Wow! I liked the flexibility of today’s lesson.
I liked the session–It would be helpful to debrief the reading so we understand your perspective on the readings.
The “Wow,” exercise was easy to do, but the “wonder,” part was hard to do about the same statement.
Walk and talk was difficult because you had to write, too!
I wonder if you could have let us in on your lesson plan. I had no idea what we were learning about until it was all over.
I wonder if my students feel the same way about doing group work?
Thought it was very well done. More geared toward the elementary level?
At first it was difficult to understand your goal for the lesson.
At this point–no questions. I really enjoyed going through each of the structures.
The activities were useful, but I think there were a bit too many. I wonder how this would have worked if we cut one or two out?
Very organized; I enjoyed it very much.
How can you get the students to strive for their goals and feedback when it is lacking choices and options. Loved being able to talk with other teachers–more personal info and helpful to grow.
So far this has been one of my favorite professional developments. I liked actively testing out the different strategies and giving and getting feedback to different groups. The activities made the learning more fun. Thanks!
We touched on it, but perhaps one or two more lessons and even some demos of differentiated instruction
I wonder if we could have new teacher meetings everyday. I learned a lot about goals and differentiated instruction.
I enjoyed moving around. I wonder if we could have established an overall goal at the beginning of the session.
I enjoyed today’s time. Although at times the activity seemed confusing or the guidelines for completing the activity seemed vague it all came together nice and clear in the end.
Spend more time outside.
Provide every teacher with a MacBook!
Practicing group activities was beneficial.
More time to develop lessons and activities using some of the concepts presented.
I feel a lot of the topics discussed would be more beneficial with some veteran teachers instead of all 1st year teachers–they know what works better.
I thought the first chart we had to fill out was confusing.
It’s good to talk to peers in different grade levels and subject areas to learn new ideas.
The first part of the meeting was confusing, but then it was really clear and helpful.
I enjoyed moving and talking/collaborating with other teachers. More of the same would be fantastic.
I did not feel that the instructional goals section had much value. The readings were widely interpreted and more guidance was needed.
Liked the way the lesson was guided and not completely structured. This allowed for more creativity and interaction between colleagues.
Make sure reading was done ahead of time and then we could recap.
I really liked this meeting because I am a big fan of cooperative learning. I learned a lot of different structures today that I will definitely implement in my classroom.
Enjoyed the co-op groups and actually met new people!
Being active is important to me. I learn so much more when i play a role in the lesson.
I liked the different activities we did today. It was interesting to meet with other teachers at different levels and subjects.
There were too many activities today. Hard to take it all in.
Each month, we meet with our first year teachers in the district to help them adjust to the expectations and the rigors of being in the classroom everyday. I have spoken about this before, but the program uses Marzano, et al’s, book Classroom Instruction That Works as a framework for teaching strategies that are research-based and effective. More than anything we do instructionally, the workshops always help the teachers come together to discuss success and failure in their classrooms; it provides them with a support structure in which they can reflect on their practice and share their uncertainties about what they are doing.
Last month we spent some time with cooperative learning structures and how to use them to help students take responsibility for their own learning through collaboration. The feedback we got from that meeting was really positive, so this month we decided to use the structures as a means to teach the next theme in the book: Goal-Setting and Feedback.
One of the most significant parts of my own learning this year has been to make every attempt I can to be a practitioner of what I teach. You have read it here before: “Be the change you want to see in others.” So when we were planning this month, Dan and I created the sessions entirely around learning structures and reaching as many intelligences as we could. Here is a list of what we did and the accompanying structures:
Clock Buddies: as soon as they walked in we handed them appointment clocks on paper and asked them to make appointments at 12 (with someone not in your building), 3 (with someone in your building), 6 (someone in your subject area), and 9 (random). We used these throughout the session to organize ourselves.
this got them moving and engaging and really set the tone for their activity level for the day.
RAFT: Sternberg created this concept based on his three intelligences. What we did is ask the teachers to write an entry on their blog using the idea of choosing a Role (object in their classroom, a student in their classroom, an observing administrator), an Audience (a parent, an administrator, a reluctant c colleague, etc.) a Format (classified ad, instruction manual, letter to the editor, observation narrative, etc.) and write about a Topic (why should we use cooperative learning structures in the classroom?).
immediately it got them thinking differently because we asked them to reflect via a different modality then they were used to. A little cognitive dissonance is a good thing!
Walk and Talk: They read a section of the book on their own, then we used our 12 o’clock buddies and asked each group to do some guided reflection using a graphic organizer. However, we asked them to do it while on a Walk and Talk. Since yesterday was a gorgeous day here in New Jersey, we allowed them to walk anywhere on the school grounds, inside or out, and asked them to discuss the reading and fill in the graphic organizer as they strolled.
“Wows and Wonders:” More reading was done independently and then we used our 3 o’clock buddies and paired the groups up to form larger groups. Since we were talking about goal setting, we asked each teacher to write a brief statement about how they use goal setting in their classroom. We then used a Round Robin format where they passed their statement to the left. Each person was responsible for writing a “Wow,” on the page and then passed it along to the next person in the circle until eventually they all received their own page back. We did the same again, only this time we asked each person to write a “Wonder,” statement on each other’s page.
This allowed everyone to get positive feedback, but also framed the constructive feedback in the form of a suggestive question, which works a lot better than a “you should have done this” statement.
Four Corners: After reading the feedback section in the book, we asked the teachers to pick one of the four research points made in the reading as the one that they would like to have a discussion about. Each corner of the room represented a different point. They moved to that corner and were asked to use a graphic organize to lead their discussion about that point.
Numbered Heads: as they discussed, we walked around and gave numbers to each group member. When it came time to wrap up, we picked numbers randomly and asked that that person tell us what their group discussed about a certain point within their topic.
this gave everyone time to add additional information to their organizer and hear points that pushed their own thinking.
Parking Lot: also as they were discussing feedback, Dan and I circled the room and distributed a blue and a yellow post-it not to everyone. We asked that on the yellow they tell us something about their own learning from the day’s session–what did you learn today? On the blue, we asked that they help us with our learning–what could we have done differently today? As they left the room for the day, they put the yellows on one wall and the blues on another.
We are in the process of sorting our notes out and going over the feedback (it was just yesterday), but I could already see that the teachers were engaged with one another at a level that we’d seen glimpses of before but couldn’t sustain. Also, on a selfish note, I did so much less talking, used so much less tech, and spent so much more time listening than I had in any of the the previous meetings.
If we are truly about changing the way our schools work, about reforming our practices to meet the needs of students, modeling said practices and methods should be the first order of business. Think of your next factulty meeting. How much will you move about the room to discuss an issue or concern or theory (trips to the food area don’t count)? Will the dialog be one-way, two-way, or circular and constant?
I realize that all meetings and sessions vary, and that decisions about presentation and lesson design are germane to the material itself, but when we can we should use what we know to produce lessons, meetings, professional development courses that we would want to sit through. Ask yourself, would you want to be in your class?
Thanks to Scott McLeod for posting this on his blog recently. This highlights something we often neglect to mention when talking about the 21st Century learner: their age. Too frequently, we focus on students being those that are youthful in age, but forsake those youthful in mind. This video clearly points out that ceasing to learn and adapt as you age is not an option for every generation under 60.
We work with teachers to help provide our students with the optimum environments for learning. What are we doing to help our teachers optimize their learning?
Being the first giant conference I have ever been to, and being the first non-tech-centered one as well, ASCD was fascinating on a few levels. The oddest thing about it was the fact that I chose not be connected via internet (god bless the iPhone and Twitter) for most of the conference. It might be a silent protest, but paying for wireless internet in hotels doesn’t sit well with me, especially when I am fronting the money. We listen often to people talk about the ubiquity of free Internet we will see in the future, but I feel it’s a long way off. More and more businesses are choosing to put proprietary restraints on the use of their wireless networks. Let’s use the Google model here: give it away and we will stay and use your product. Or at least we will give the perception to passersby that we are enjoying your business. I’ll end that rant there.
Bigger issues seem to dominate my thinking lately, issues such as school change and culture change within our society. My reading and writing tends to focus on the areas of motivating people to want something better, and giving them the means to create it for themselves. I am not going to be dishonest, I have goals and ideas that I would like to see put in place not only in schools, but in the larger picture as well (stay tuned for the world domination post to come shortly); however, I am wise enough, I think, to know that what I want matters little if the people I work with don’t see the value in it.
On the way down here, I sat next to a gentleman named Simon Sinek, of Sinek Partners. A while back, in my days as an expatriate in Greece, I worked for man who taught me that airline flights were the best places to go to school. “Interesting people fly and travel,” he said. Talk to the people around you on the plane.” So I took Fouad’s advice and struck up a conversation with this gentleman to my left. It turns out that Simon had an idea that he was trying to spread that involved asking corporations, individuals, government, or whoever would listen to articulate to themselves and others why they do the things they do. Without knowledge of and presentation of the “why” no one will be able to understand you, or better still, buy into what you are doing.
Often, he said, we confuse the “what” with the “why.” In business, people rarely buy the “what,” but more likely buy the “why.” I use Apple computers, and if you asked me why, I would probably rattle off that their design is intuitive, they are less buggy, I like the interface, etc. But what I would leave out would be the essential part of why I use them: I subconsciously buy into Steve Jobs ideal of irreverence and individuality. We might say the “what’s,” but only because we can’t articulate the “why.” I’ll admit it, I bought into “Think Different,” and why wouldn’t I? It’s a fantastic ideal.
Translating all of that into my practice, we ask our schools to change, and we say we need to change so that we “promote lifelong learning,” “create students capable of excelling in the 21st Century,” or any one of the mission statement buzzwords we might put there. But do we articulate why we do the things we do? What if I told my teachers that I wanted to inspire them to be innovative? Leave the kids out of it for a moment, and focus on the teachers. Inspire and innovate. I don’t have to tell them what that looks like, I have to model it in my own practice. Innovation comes from the fringes. Ric Murry and I had a banter back and forth about this via twitter the other day, but I think we can understand that teaching is not a “fringe,” but the model still works; it’s just semantics. Our teachers should be the ones leading the change and innovating. My role in all of this is to help provide the “why”. Steve Jobs didn’t make the iPod, he made the idea of an iPod possible. Teachers should be sharing their “innovations” with one another regularly, and I should be connecting them to one another to help spread that innovation.
Comparing what I do to what Steve Jobs does makes me feel way too self-important, but I think it’s an easy way to see the relationship between what we sometimes lack in schools and where we need to go.We don’t need mission statements, but rather leaders that inspire through action and empathy. Ginsberg’s session on Friday gave me a great insight into how to create a community of teachers that cares not only about one another, but about the level of teaching in the building: observations should be done with a group of teachers, as well as an administrator. Group observations and group debriefings, all with a common language and goals will become commonplace.
My thinking is shifting once again, and this time it’s shifting toward inclusion. Get on board, and grab an oar.
I think it was at EduCon, but it could have been from somewhere before that, or even in a twitter discussion, but Joyce Valenza was given credit for coining the phrase “I want to be a widget in your learning space.”
That got me thinking, and since I have been playing around with using iGoogle or Pageflakes as the hub of a class I am creating, I told myself to try to find out if that is possible: a teacher with a presence in their students learning space. This is the closest I have come. I built it using something called Sprout, which was fairly easy to navigate. Go check it out and see what you think of its potential.
I know I took the quote literally, but the ideas coming out of this are pretty intense:
marketing classes designing page-specific ads
running for student council? Why not insert widgets into your friends pages on Facebook or Myspace?
use the RSS feed aspect of the widget to have pertinent class information displayed immediately on your widgets (edits follow the widgets wherever they are placed).
“In order to think outside the box, you need to know what is in the box.”
Change is a loaded word. It strikes fear into the hearts of even the most secure of professionals. In looking at the idea of change, I see it as coming from one of two directions: either top-down, where those in charge of your program, your superintendent, building administrator, or your supervisor bring it about, or bottom-up, also termed “organic, or “grass-roots,” where change comes from the classrooms and spreads throughout a school building or district based on the practices of teachers and the work of students.
What I am seeing
When I started the process if looking at pedagogy rather than looking at tools as ways to help engage students, the world of technology became small. Granted, I really began this process in earnest about 5 months ago, so the sample size here is small, but nonetheless, what I see is what Chris Lehmann so aptly termed in his session at EduCon: “It’s not the product, it’s the process.” Learning experience matters infinitely more than the end result. Focusing on that process rather than the final paper or diorama or wiki is a difficult thing to do when the tools that take us there are so unbelievably slick.
Our situation in regards to change
Our process of change that is occurring has been and continues to be top-down, where we as administrators and tech coordinators are introducing teachers to tools and pedagogies that are transformative and engaging, but we are relying on their trust and their willingness to open themselves to developing expertise. How well will this continue to work? It remains to be seen whether or not it is a model for systemic change with our staff. We are working within 5 buildings, each with varying levels of both adoption and readiness. When that is the case, your strategy involves as much trust-building as it does introduction to new ideas. We have worked hard on that, but there are elements that are lacking in our design:
overarching curricular goals that are written directly into our curriculum plans at the start. Technology and the pedagogy to use it transformatively is often left out of that process.
teacher’s as vocal advocates for change a building-level plan for helping teachers teach with these adapted methodologies (notice I said adapted methodologies because we are not re-inventing the wheel here; the methods we advocate are still the same we have been touting for years: differentiating, cooperative learning, co-teaching, questioning skills, etc. Only now we are truly elevating their effectiveness through the use of social, collaborative and expressive technologies.)
An environment that allows teachers to be free from the fear of failure and it’s supposed administrative repercussions. If we expect our students to learn, unlearn, and re-learn, then we must give our teachers the freedom to create, experiment and play with content and its delivery to students.
I sat in Kevin Jarrett and Sylvia Martinez’s session about creating lasting change within a school district using the Future Search Process, and I remember thinking about all the ideas that were flying about the room in terms of gathering the necessary parties needed for creating change. The one that keeps sticking with me is the reference they made to something called “The Burning Platform,” whereby an individual is placed in a situation (a burning oil platform) where they must choose either certain death (staying on the platform) or the likelihood of death (jumping into the water). The analogy to education is that there is a situation whereby the outcome of staying still is obvious: student apathy and loss of engagement, but the outcome of changing and moving is less obvious but possibly a salvation.
I am looking at a situation where I don’t know if teachers understand that the platform is burning. They don’t know whether to jump, stay still, or get marshmallows. I want to create a community that is not afraid of change, that feels like they have a stake in the change process, and is willing to help create that change even if makes their role in the classroom change to one that is better capable of creating methods to solve rather than providing answers.
Is there an authentic audience for you student writing?
Elements of the student writing processes demonstrated in the video:
-students know they will be writing for an external assessor
-students know that they will be anonymous
-”they don’t know me, they are only criticizing my work, not me.”
-performance is part of the process
Creating an external assessor adds a layer of motivation.
Nursing home example of writing project. Can we make this authentic?
Partner Teachers:
www.epals.com
-find classrooms
-country
-teachers sign up and want to be found
Wikipedia articles created by students for publication and submission.
-energy and excitement created by allowing students to do this.
-responsibility to teach students how content is created in this manner.
-not to mention the fact that there is constant revision of this article
Blogging with Students
-comments are the magic of blogging
-students get to interact with one another and provide feedback
-provide for asynchronous conversation between students and their “teachers”
