Being the edu-nerd that I am, I often look at parallels between my experiences inside and outside the world of schools and education, (see Bubble Wrap for another example). Now, two-and-a-half weeks into my Thailand & Vietnam holiday, such parallels are jumping out at me, and I think of them as ‘traps’. It seems that everywhere we go on this holiday there are tours being offered and trinkets to buy. The packages and prices are all designed to steer you to the ‘deluxe’ version, “…for just a little bit more, you can also get…”.

Then on the way to your destination the washroom or lunch break also happens to be a great place to buy more trinkets and souvenirs and artwork and…. (insert ‘local’ artisan specialty here). This is also known as a ‘Tourist Trap’- you are committed to the tour, now let’s see how much money we can extract from you while you are here.

One parallel that I see in education is the ‘Textbook Trap’: “Buy our textbook and get the free online supplement! Oh, and by the way, each teacher will want our Teacher’s Guide, and don’t forget the Blackline Masters and the Student Workbook will save your students hours of copy-time so they can focus on the learning. Also, notice how we have designed the books to build upon themselves, you’ll also want to purchase for the next grade too. Of course if you bought more then we can increase your savings to 40%!”

… And there is the trap, you aren’t buying a textbook, you are buying a program. You are ‘investing’ a significant portion of your budget in a fixed ‘paper’ product designed with both features and flaws that become, over time, what teachers ‘deliver’ to students: A fixed/set curriculum, (that is based on, but is not necessarily the mandated curriculum).

That brings us to the next trap, the ‘Curriculum Trap’. I hear curriculum as an anti-technology ‘excuse’ all the time. I won’t even get into the Standardized Testing Trap: “It’s easy to integrate technology into the lower grades, but I have so much content to deliver that I can’t ‘waste time’ with a project like this.”

Instead, I’ll look into another aspect of the ‘Curriculum Trap’… The whole idea of curriculum being ‘fixed’: “After chapter 1 we will do chapter 2, then we get a little crazy and do chapters 4 & 5 before going back to do chapter 3.”

I’ve never seen a curriculum with a requirement of ‘Chapter 3′, and I’ve never seen a textbook that could teach a curriculum better than a creative, imaginative teacher. My kids may not remember what they did on the beach in Ko Phi Phi over a one week span, but they will remember sleeping in a floating hut just a one minute kyak ride away from viewing wild monkeys in Khao Sok National Park, Thailand. They will remember repelling from a 50meter tree after zip-lining from platforms equally as high. And they will remember riding on the neck of an elephant. These events were not part of our planned vacation, they were the side-trips, the unscheduled add-ons that became the memorable moments.

Comparatively, the ‘meaningful’ learning experiences of my education were the side-trips and ‘teachable moments’ that just came up… Discussions about world events and personal interest stories that were meaningful though not mandated or designated as essential.

The opening scene in the movie Saving Private Ryan can exemplify the horrors of war more than any textbook, just as Cry Freedom can teach students the racism of apartheid in South Africa. It’s one thing to talk about Leonardo Da Vinci and still another to watch one of his inventions at work on YouTube, or digitally turn the pages and read one of his notebooks, an opportunity only recently provided to the masses. We have to make time to be side-tracked by things that interest us and make learning memorable.

And one final parallel is the ‘Pro-D Trap’. Professional Development in education has become a fixed-time-and-date ‘event’. There is almost nothing professional about it… Punch-in, do your time, punch-out. The greatest reward a presenter can offer to participants is, “if all goes well then we’ll be out of here an hour early”. Yet, we have entered an era where anytime, anywhere learning is possible. I wrote my last post on a 3.5 hour van ride from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay. I’m writing this on the return trip a day later. I’m ‘unplugged’, but I’m thinking, reflecting & learning. I’ll be adding these posts to my blog over the next couple days and hopefully others will comment and contribute to my… perhaps ‘our’… learning.

And yet we somehow try to compartmentalize our ‘professional’ learning into ½ & 1 day sessions and we even divide those up into 45 minute, 1hour and 1.5hour sessions. Often these sessions are not even contextually meaningful: “We’re going to talk about blogging for the next hour, and you’ll know how to sign up for one when we’re done… But we don’t really have any time today to look at, comment, or discuss effective examples of blogs.” Hmmmm.

In the last two Pro-D sessions that I ran, I provided ‘play time’ in the agenda. I also provided choice: “Here are a few different resources that you might find useful. Go to one of them now, ’start’ you learning here, use me as a resource too.”

We need teachers to participate and interact with tools that engage learners and learning. We need them to take their own learning outside of their Pro-D sessions. We need them to try, to participate and to have a safe environment to make mistakes and learn from, and through, the frustrations of their mistakes. We need them to take this ‘real learning’ back to their schools with them and be the lead learners in their schools and in their classrooms.

It’s easy to fall into these traps, it’s harder to recognize them for what they are and step out of them.

Caring across the curriculum

Sometimes I get tired of seeing the school day broken into subject-matter based courses. We don’t teach subjects we teach students, and students of all ages engage in a real life that matters across individual fields of study.

Watch the video* Miniature Earth:

How many different ’subjects’ can we teach with this video? How real is the Math? How relevant is the Social Studies? Can we tie in History? Current Events? Economics? Environmental Issues? Healthy Living?

How far can we extend the learning? These are 1990 statistics from the state of the Village Report. What are the stats now? Can you predict what they will be 10 years from now? “Write a paragraph from the perspective of…”

But caring isn’t just about identifying a problem, it is about doing something about that problem.

Watch the video* World on Fire by Sarah McLachlan:

More real life relevance across the curriculum and proof that one person can make a difference!

So what can a class do?

Kiva.org is a great example of what can be done. Mico-Loans to poeple from many parts of the world that would have a hard time getting regular loans.

Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

The people you see on Kiva’s site are real individuals – not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs’ profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need. (About Kiva )

If you want to know how meaningful this can be to a class of students, check out what Jen Whiffin has done with her Grade 4/5 class. She starts her post: Math Made Compelling: The Kiva Renaissance with this quote:

“Building a thought-filled curriculum serves the larger agenda of building a more thought-filled world–an interdependent learning community where people continually search for ways to care for one another, learn together, and grow towards greater intelligence.  We must deepen student thinking to hasten the arrival of a world community…” (Arthur L. Costa, “The Thought-Filled Curriculum”, Educational Leadership, 2008)

If you enjoy that post, check out her other related posts Math Made Compelling and Math Made Compelling: Phase One of the Kiva Project . Also check out her class’ Kiva profile.

Grade 4’s and 5’s learning about GDP per capita? Why not? But take this real-life meaning away and the math just isn’t… compelling.

A curriculum of caring and making a difference, across many fields of study. Learning that matters and connects our students to the world they live in.

*Update: For those of you ‘Behind the filter’ like my teachers here in China, since you cannot see the embeded and linked YouTube videos. Here they both are: Miniature Earth and World on Fire. You can watch them online or download them thanks to drop.io!

Dumbfounded by the trite and appalling approach, I did not keep a link to an article I read last week where some American schools were taking away the toys in primary classrooms until test scores improved. Are we in the buiseness of ‘measuring’ or ‘learning‘?

Last week I went to a Professional Development session on “Multiple Perspctives on Early Child Development”. It was a panel discussion that looked at some of the things we are doing with early childhood education. Here is my second page of notes, written on a paper tablecloth:

When looking at early child development:

Curriculum is Everything that happens

Play is HOW the learning happens

Play is a means to capitalize on learning

All animals learn through play

-they test limits and abilities

-play helps with peer socialization

Play & Imagination develop a Sense of Narrative

-narrative is essential for the shift from

Learning to Read -to- Reading to Learn

Play promotes both problem solving and collaboration

Play is chlid directed activity, child directed learning

Problem-Based Play Challenges and Engages

Play needs to be developmentally appropriate, but it should not end with primary/early education. There is a reason why the video game industry makes billions of dollars on games for teens and adults.

At what age does there seem to be a shift from Learning from Play to Learning or Playing? At what age do we start preparing kids for ‘the next grade’ or ‘the next test’?

We need to think more about the pedagogy of play and less about curriculum content… but the question arises: How do we measure this? Or better yet, how do we stop our measurement-based-evaluations from squeezing the fun out of learning?

I asked this question to the ministry representative on the panel: With our focus on standardidized testing how do we encourage more play? She didn’t answer my question. She said that play will improve test scores. I wouldn’t have asked the question if I didn’t already get that point.

So how do we promote learning through play more effectively in our schools?

Can quantitative tests meaningfully measure qualitative attributes and skills?

What is it we really want to measure?

Do we need a new narrative about what schools are about?

One is on Digital Citizenship which looks at a post by Vicky A. Davis. The concepts I am formulating are in need of some more deep thought, and I don’t know when I will get to it?

The second post is on a 1-1 project in our district. I invited myself to a presentation for parents of students receiving computers for the project. Although the post is almost done, (and sitting in a Google document), I’m feeling bitter about my lack of availability of computers to teach my Planning 10 classes and so I don’t think I can complete the post until my frame of mind is one that can frame the post in the positive light I feel it deserves. (I feel childish admitting that, but that’s where I’m at right now.)

All these tools are technological with only the potential to be pedagogical… but they aren’t designed with pedagogy in mind. And so with regards to education, I wonder if those in the lead are actually worth following? Will Richardson has a great blog, but I’m not going to give him and his buddy 45 minutes of my time to get information that a 4 paragraph summary of their talk could give me!

…And as for the big hype around backchannels… why do people think this is something worth having transcribed? If a backchannel is used correctly -in my humble, ‘perspective from the outside looking in’, opinion- then it would influence the presenters, and so the meaningful components would be integrated into the presentation. As for any ‘interesting sidebar conversations’ that happen- they are mostly relevant in context with the presentation and if they are worth expanding on and investigating… great, investigate them and blog them for me, just don’t ask me to read 200+ comments to find a gem in the rough. Backchannels have tremendous value in the ‘here-and-now’, during a presentation, but what’s with all the analysis after the fact? My point is that not only do I not have time for all these new tools, these new tools are time consumers that don’t add to my learning experience in a meaningful way.

Looking at Kelly’s post, he states:

“Primarily, little has changed with education despite all the tools. I firmly believe that until we examine the curricula, change some of those objectives and rework others, making it relevant to the students, no amount of cool tool is going to create change.”

I couldn’t have said it better!

• How much of the K12Online07 conference will I participate in?
• Is FieldFindr worth spending time on?
• Am I Ning-ing for my Planning 10 class project or blogging?
• When will I finish my other posts?

I could go on but I think my point is made, and I want to turn my questions outward…

• Am I the only one who feels like a 30 hour day would still be too short?
• Are there others out there who wonder what kind of commitment it will take for a teacher to be technologically savvy enough to meaningfully engage students with all these new tools?
• Are we focusing too much on the tools and not enough on pedagogy?
• Will educational structures change fast enough to provide our students with a relevant education?
• … and for that matter… What would an ideal education look like today?

Learning Authentically in the Language Arts Classroom by Jamie McKenzie

Here are the bulleted criteria under 1. Rationale …

“authentic teaching” that involves students in “authentic intellectual work” outside school.

…pass the test of authenticity because they meet the following criteria:

• They are rooted in issues, challenges or decisions that people face in the world.
• They are genuine.
• The act of wrestling with these challenges is purposive – saturated with meaning and significance.
• A student can see a payoff in the future for work well done and skills acquired.

In short, authentic intellectual work passes the test of “so what?” It is meaningful, worthy and generative – in the sense of provoking ongoing growth and development.

I think that if the use of technology is authentic in this way, then the technology is being used appropriately in education. (Rather than just to play with the newest toys, as I seem to be noticing with Ustream- more on this misguided ‘use of technology in education’ in my next post). Also noteworthy, the author’s Anti-Prensky article.

Amy Capelle has started a very interesting discussion in Ning’s Classroom2.0

She asks, “Are they really digital natives?”

The discussion there is great! Here is my response:

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“I come from the Batman era,
adding items to my utility belt while students today are the Borg from Star Trek,
assimilating technology into their lives.”

That’s a quote I use to differentiate digital immigrants from digital natives.

BUT I have realized that it is much more about comfort level & exposure than it is about age. While I am helping some frustrated students open a sign-up verification e-mail, other students have logged into the new site, added a photo, and changed the appearance of their personal page.

There are three digital divides here preventing me from effectively using technology in the classroom. (Two from my post, and the 3rd added from this Classroom2.0 discussion.) These divides are the gaps between:

1. What I know and what I need to know.

2. What the school has in the way of technology and what it needs to have.

3. What skills/abilities students enter my class with.

#1 I can change.
#2 will never change fast enough.
#3 is the shift in this conversation.

I have both immigrants and natives in my class, so the distinction is moot.

In another post I said,

“And then there is my class Science Alive! wiki… “I think that I am guilty of seeing the value of using technology in guiding learning, but not effectively guiding learning in my technology use.”

I have done a pretty good job of getting my students going… but now as momentum builds I have come to the realization that I don’t have a marking rubric to guide me, or my students, as we move towards a final product.

My class is assembling a lego model without the instructions, or even the image of the final product on the front of the box. This isn’t a problem for the creative/motivated students; they will assembly a better model in ways that I could never have ‘instructed’ them… but some students need structure, they have been fed it for years and expect it (even from yours truly – this isn’t finger pointing, it is observation).

I let technology supersede pedagogy.“

Digital immigrants or digital natives is nothing more than a discussion of digital competence… it is a spectrum, not a dichotomy!

Where does this leave us?
We want all of our students to be digitally competent.
We want all of our students to be articulate thinkers.
We need to make this happen in pedagogically sound ways.
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Let us go to the very beginning of the whole debate and none other Mark Prensky himself. In his article, Adopt and Adapt: Shaping Tech for the Classroom, Prensky says:

“…technology adoption… It’s typically a four-step process:

1. Dabbling.
2. Doing old things in old ways.
3. Doing old things in new ways.
4. Doing new things in new ways.”

I think we get excited when we see ‘new things in new ways’, but often we end up (re)creating old things in new ways. The real conversation needs to be around the constraints of curriculum and standardized testing.

“This is why the foundation of education systems today should not be the rails, but it should be the side trips. It should not be the central standard curriculum, but it should be those directions that students, that learners, both teachers and students, can navigate to on their own.” (David Warlick)

New things in new ways… creating articulate thinkers… and building digital competence as a by-product.

…more on Empathy.

Friday night I camped out at the school with 49 students, each raising a minimum of $50- to earn the opportunity to sleep over at the school. We hosted a 24 hour famine to raise money for our Me to We Club… we are fundraising to build a school in Sierra Leone.

It was fun, and it was exhausting! Three and a half hours of broken sleep… and totally worth it! Some things didn’t quite go as planned, but overall it was a huge success. I’ve done many 30 Hour Famine’s for World Vision, but this year I wanted the fundraiser to coincide with our school goal of $15,000.00 to build and help supply the Sierra Leone school. The famine itself is a great way to give the students an experience that many kids around the world are ‘inflicted’ with: Hunger!

So, I could go on about the kids that snuck junk food in, and indulged… or how these same girls were disrespectful to the female teacher that helped me out, (something I still have to follow up on Monday), but instead, I want to highlight empathy and compassion. So, enjoy a few tales of the next generation doing good.

Callie: She didn’t collect any money. I saw her leaving the school on Friday and said to her, “I thought this would be something that you would want to do?” Her response: “I wanted to Mr. Truss but I just couldn’t ask anyone else for money.” You see, we just finished a fundraiser selling boxes of chocolate bars – 15 bars in a box, $30 a box. My class sold 16 boxes, Callie on her own sold 22. I gave her a permission slip and where it said ‘you must collect a minimum of $50-’ I added “^ or sell 22 boxes of chocolates… Wow!” You should have been there to see the smile on her face.

Reed: (He sold two boxes of chocolates) “Mr. Truss, I can’t ask anyone else for a donation, I’m just going to donate $50 myself so that I can come. I can afford it.” He ended up donating $85… basically he got $35 in pledges but kept his personal donation at 50.

Sadey and Misha: For the second year in a row they raised $150 each. While some students just got their parents to write a cheque for $50, these girls collected money 1, 2 or 5 dollars at a time.

Braden: As he handed me his required $50 on Wednesday, “I don’t get paid until the weekend, can I donate more after the famine?”

Nicole and Ian: They couldn’t sleep over at the school, but still chose to collect money anyway.

Alexandra: We only had one grade 6 girl in attendance. I saw Alexandra from my (Grade class talking to her when everyone was arriving. I asked her if she new the girl and she said yes. I said do you mind making sure this girl feels included? Her response, “Oh, of course!”

Andy & Carleigh: They are the backbone to our Me to We club. They both plan to go to the Leaders Today Take Action! Academy this summer run by Free the Children. They are two young kids who are thoughtful and compassionate. They are, and they will continue, making the world a better place!

Empathy may not be part of the curriculum, but it certainly can be encouraged in school… by teachers and students alike!

As we start to look at different skills, 21st Century Skills, and get kids thinking beyond what is on the test, it gets harder to mark what really counts. Report cards will have to change as our assessment does. How valuable is it to measure a student’s ability to solve a Numeracy Task? How do you weight this evaluation next to quiz and test marks that are based on a student’s ability to follow the steps in adding fractions, or their ability to follow the algorithm for solving an algebra equation? What about their ability to Synthesize and Add Meaning to what they know?

These are questions I am grappling with on a number of levels… but while I think about these things, the reality of having to write report cards is still there. After just completing my second term report cards, I have been thinking of the changes that I have helped to make on our district’s middle school report cards. They don’t directly address my concerns above, but the changes have created an opportunity to look at learning skills as much as we do marks… I think this is a step in the right direction

It wasn’t perfect but it was a chance to say a bit more about a student than a simple work habit evaluation of G, S,or N (Good, Satisfactory, or Needs Improvement).

With hindsight being 20/20, I now wonder how we could have included some 21^st Century Skills into these learning skills? Of course then we would need to ensure that all students were given the opportunity to develop those skills.

The idea behind these Learning Skills was a driving force of what we as not only teachers, but also as parents, wanted to see on a report card. A theme that kept coming up was that we wanted to know that the teacher knew or understood who our kid is! We also wanted to know what areas of learning we, as parents, could help with at home.

We changed the evaluative language from G, S, and N to M-Mastering, D- Developing and E- Emerging. This has subsequently been changed back. I like the more positive description of M, E, and D, but that’s also partially because it signaled a difference in approach from the umbrella term of Work Habits we used to have on our report cards, and also because I think that the old scale carried a bit too much baggage with it. “How does it look when I give a grade of an ‘A’ with an ‘S’ for work habits?” (My response is that what it looks like doesn’t matter! Add an anecdotal comment to explain this.) However, it seemed to me that students who get an ‘A’ and who are still ‘Emerging’ in certain learning skills would have very appropriate feedback if his report card mentioned this. I’ll stab at a more humourous aspect of this after looking at where we are now.

Our district rolled this report out for our first term this year.

It was to be… “The last format we are going to work with”… but it wasn’t. Three key flaws to our design: 1. Teachers hated the Learning Skills; 2. Teachers of individual courses did not have a say regarding behavior and/or work habits in their individual classes;and, 3. Students portray these skills, or lack thereof, quite differently from class to class/teacher to teacher.

What I really hated was the drop-down menu for Social Responsibility, now mandatory for us to report on. Here are the options from the drop-down menu from which we were (and still are) to choose from:

On our current Report Card cover page it states,

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Social Responsibility is reported on in one or more of the following areas: contributing to the classroom and school community, solving problems in peaceful ways, valuing diversity and defending human rights, and exercising democratic rights and responsibilities.”

Even with student input, I found these difficult to use for all but the most inclusive/cooperative students. The menu is based on the BC (Provincial) Performance Standards for Social Responsibility (find the rubric here). Although I like the rubric and use it for students to reflect on, I think the drop-down menu needs to be revised to make the comments more meaningful to students, teachers, and parents. (I couldn’t imagine putting, “tends to be egocentric, apathetic, feel powerless” on a student’s report card!) There is a 65 character space also provided for further explanation by the teacher.

Also from our report card cover we have an explanation of the Learning Skills. For the Term 1 report above the 5 skill areas were simply identified as learning skills, (including social responsibility) whereas there is greater detail in this term’s new cover page, (with Social Responsibility being separated out, as described above). Notice the combining of the learning skills from the Term 1 report:

Older report cards simply had ‘work habits’ to encompass all of these. Before I say that ‘I really like this new format’, let me say that after our school learning team ended last year and I have had nothing to do with these new changes, so this isn’t a case of me tooting my own horn.

I really like this new format! Work Habits & Effort fit well together, as do Behavior & Attitude. Yes a student could have poor work habits and still put in a great effort, or have a great attitude and still be a behavior issue, but these difference can easily be touched on in the anecdotal section of the report card. The separation of work habits from behavior is the most noticeable change for me. As a parent I think this information is much more meaningful, and as a teacher I feel that I can better inform parents as to where I see areas of need and, hopefully as the year progresses, areas of growth.
Also, now the kid with an ‘A’ in a class but with both Satisfactory Work Habits & Effort as well as a Satisfactory Behavior & Attitude can be referred to as an “A with a double S”

Here is this term’s report card. Due to the unexpected change we were told that we did not have to go back and re-fill in the grades/skills for Term 1. This would have been a little challenging and time consuming since we’d have to combine the learning skills that we originally looked at separately.

Learning Conversation_ Part I

It was refreshing to hear Maureen Dockendorf, our staff development co-ordinator, (Director of Instruction), speak at our Building Leadership Capacity (BLC*) series introduction.

She encouraged us to become ‘intellectual companions’ that enter into ‘learning conversations’. The part I liked most about her talk was the direction of the conversation. She spoke of:
Not the Knowing, but the Process of Inquiry.
Not covering the curriculum, but ‘uncovering’ the curriculum.
A focus in innovation and creativity… how do we model this… every day?

Maureen also spoke of the 5 needs that we (students/teachers/learners) have:
The need to feel confident,
The need to feel like we belong,
The need to be potent- feel you have made a difference,
The need to feel useful, and
The need to have a sense of optimism.

(She identified her source for this, but I didn’t write it down.) ["The reference to the needs of the 21st learner were from the former president of ASCD , Martha Bruckner." -Thanks for passing on this information in your comment Maureen.]

I think that when using technology in the classroom, it would be prudent to keep these needs in mind!

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Learning Conversations Part II

I started by saying Maureen’s presentation was refreshing. I think I felt that way because when I look back at my blog, I can see parallels to what she spoke about. I think that it is significant that the Director of Instruction in our district is prioritizing these ideas when talking to teachers interested in leadership… especially as more and more pressure is being placed on districts to perform well on standardized tests. So here is my take on what Maureen said relative to what I have written about, (here in this blog so far). Also note my Meta-Analysis of these two parts below.

Not the Knowing, but the Process of Inquiry:

Articulate your Thinking
The BIG IDEA:
One overall school goal of”Articulate Thinking”.
Building the skills necessary to develop articulate students who can express their thoughts in meaningful, articulate ways.

The Philosophical Bent:
I don’t really care if my daughters, upon graduation, can identify the subordinate clause in a sentence or if they can tell me how to find the volume of a cone… I do care that they can express themselves in thoughtful, meaningful ways and demonstrate social responsibility in their decision making.

Sharing and Engaging: Web 2-point-0h-Yeah!
Vanja both wanted, and demanded a learning conversation. For me it was wonderful to see a student expecting more from her peers, or should I say, from her community of learners.
Reflections:
From Cynthia, “I learned more by sharing than by searching.”
From Mona, “You actually get to learn with each other and help others learn.”
From Lily, “It was fun doing this project and I enjoyed this kind of learning experience when you get to find your own knowledge rather than laying it all out for you. I feel that I have achieved something really good each time I’ve found some interesting facts on the blog and the dialogues, which made me put more time into these things. I realized that this could be another way of learning new things and also communicating with each other rather than finding information by yourself.

“How do you know when your students are learning?… When they are asking the right questions.

“the use of blogs to learn not just to teach”
I need to ask myself:
‘Am I adding technology to my teaching or providing students with new learning and new ways to learn?’
‘Am I creating an environment where students will express, synthesize, and reflect on their (and each other’s) learning, or am I creating a new way to report out?’ (A glorified poster board).
‘Am I encouraging students to be lifelong learners?’

A side note: The curriculum does not come up in my line of questioning… it seems almost insignificant in this meta conversation. Does it matter what the content is, or isn’t the process far more important?

I think that if we want students to be lifelong learners, and we want them to take ownership of their own learning to any extent, then subject discipline must be, at the very least, ‘loosened’ up. [Which leads us to...]

Not covering the curriculum, but ‘uncovering’ the curriculum:

David Warlick’s K12 Online Conference Keynote (Derailing Education)
“This is why the foundation of education systems today should not be the rails, but it should be the side trips. It should not be the central standard curriculum, but it should be those directions that students, that learners, both teachers and students, can navigate to on their own.” (David Warlick)

…the teacher as the compass. We point in a direction, (not necessarily the direction that the student is going), and we are a reference point or guide to the learning. As students sail (rather than ride the rails) they must choose their destination, (what they want to learn), and tack and adjust their path as they go… using the teacher as a compass that keeps them on their ‘learning’ course.

The way of the teacher is a practice in trust- (Stone Soup)
“In keeping with “the Stone Soup” metaphor, the teacher brings the cauldron, builds the fire, puts the “magic” stone into the boiling water and trusts that eventually the audience will engage enough to bring their own hidden ingredients to the process.” (Mia Lobel, Michael Neubauer, Randy Swedburg)

Christopher D. Sessums :: Competing Paradigms and Educational Reform
(Linked above to his post, not my short exerpt)
“The crucial elements that will sustain school improvement is not high-stakes testing, standards, or reactionary accountability programs – “it is simple human trust… that rests on four supports: respect, competency, integrity, and personal regard for others” (George 2006). “
In terms of education, the alternate paradigm acknowledges the following broad perspective:

• Curriculum is best derived from the needs and interests of the learners.
• Developmental appropriateness should supersede national assessment.

“The developmental needs for learners are widespread and cannot be easily or meaningfully reduced to a pencil-based exam.”

Articulate your Thinking (again, but this time from Gary Kern)
I would differentiate all learning, but I would try to cluster learning objectives so that teachers can continue to play a crucial role in learning and still be the main facilitator for learning. The computer, in its ideal form, is the tool that allows us to individualize student work. It will allow us to communicate in real time, learn in real time, and assess in real time. It will be the lever to better learning. Teachers, however, will need to be better than ever before. They will be the fuel for the flame.

…Teams of teachers would still work together to deliver the curriculum, but the interaction and model would be much different than today. Some genius will lay out the curriculum into standards and objectives that are clear and easy to follow. Teachers will bring the objectives to life, and technology will allow students to demonstrate their learning in ways unimaginable only a few short years ago. Problem based learning and rich task learning will be for the masses.

A focus in innovation and creativity… how do we model this… every day?

Square Peg, Round Hole
Sir Ken Robinson, Ted Talks: Do schools today kill creativity? (Worth watching again!)

Many of the Square/Round Peg Students (that don’t fit into our other-shaped schools) are the future thinkers/dreamers/innovators that are going to meaningfully change our world. We need to recognize their future value… We have an obligation to nurture them, and to develop their enthusiasm for learning. It isn’t just about not stifling creativity or not making schools so alien… it is about creating an environment where every child can thrive… Not making the misfits fit, but rather helping them create a space that fits them.

Application of Constructivist Principles to the Practice of Instructional Technology

• Think in terms of designing learning environments rather than selecting instructional strategies. Metaphors are important. Does the designer “select” a strategy or “design” a learning experience? Grabinger, Dunlap, and Heath (1993) provide design guidelines for what they call realistic environments for active learning (REAL); these guidelines reflect a constructivist orientation:
  • Extend students’ responsibility for their own learning.
  • Make learning meaningful.
  • Promote active knowledge construction.
• Think of instruction as providing tools that teachers and students can use for learning; make these tools user-friendly. This frame of mind is virtually the opposite of “teacher-proofing” instructional materials to assure uniform adherence to designers’ use expectations. Instead, teachers and students are encouraged to make creative and intelligent use of instructional tools and resources. (Bonnie Skaalid)

Synthesize and Add Meaning [To some extent, this fits in the above two categories as well.]

But there is a dichotomy here: Our ‘educational language’ around standardization and accountability juxtaposed with differentiation and flexibility… we seem to have two mutually exclusive camps, yet there seems to be a move to embrace both. To embrace both is to accomplish neither.

We need to be adept at creating flexible, differentiated learning environments.

We need to be computer literate, and also be able to teach a new kind of literacy. (Warlick)

We need to challenge students by asking questions, guiding their learning, and helping them to develop their own personal learning environments.

We need to teach students to synthesize information and add new meaning.

We must change what we do. (And we need visionary leaders to lead the way!)
“We need visionary educational leadership that understands and effectively communicates the importance of emphasizing student CREATIVITY and the creation of original (and remixed) knowledge products.” (Wesley Fryer)

A Story About A Tree
…This started out as a story about a tree, and it will end with the planting of some seeds…

How will we use the community building aspects of the internet to foster learning in schools?

How do we make schools into ‘modern day’ learning communities?

How do we get students to engage rather than escape?

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Meta-Analysis: Hyperlinks fuel the fire

At first, this post was going to be a short reporting-out of my BLC meeting, or more specifically Maureen’s talk. Then I reflected on her words and created Part II, which was going to become this post… but the process of creating Part II ‘planted the seed’ for this post to evolve as it has.

In creating Part II, I tried to put enough information into each section that it really wasn’t necessary to follow a link unless the reader had a personal interest in the specific topic. The ‘effort’ to create this section, in itself, was a meaningful learning experience. Searching for relevant connections and following the hyper-linked-thoughts transformed the post from a simple learning conversation to multiple learning conversations… it allowed me to synthesize ideas and add meaning to the words that I originally heard at the meeting. It took hours to do this, but it was worth it – I became a participant in the learning process – I created internal learning conversations and expressed them externally here.

How does the presence of hyperlinks change the experience of this post for the reader? I can answer that for myself having been consumed by my own reading of edublogs over the past few months. The challenge I now face is being selective on which hyperlinks, which side trips, I choose to go down… this is proving to be a skill that I am learning/honing… but the decision-making process has more to do with personal interests than a logical/deductive process. In keeping with the theme of this post, the act of effectively following hyperlinks is in and of itself a process of inquiry, it requires taking tangents from the curriculum and seeking to ‘uncover’ what is interesting, and it requires the participant to creatively select (personal) relevance. Teaching this skill will be a challenge… one that cannot be measured by standardized tests, but will be a necessary skill for the 21st Century.

Feb. 5th… I have to add hyperlinks to this section! Jesse Lubinsky from Irvington School District in NY sent a video link to Jennifer Cronk. Her post was picked up by Will Richardson who is in my Netvibes feedreader. The video is from, “Digital Ethnography @ Kansas State University“. It is a fantastic video that exemplifies how web2.0 is changing how we connect, what we do… and who we are. I have tried to ’say’ things on this video… it doesn’t just speak what I have tried to say, (a number of times on this blog), it breathes it!

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*What is the BLC series?
The Building Leadership Capacity series is open to teachers interested in both formal and informal leadership. The four sessions will focus on inquiring and exploring the building of personal leadership capacity through a variety of experiences. The series puts a high priority on opportunities for participants to talk about leadership, bringing the unique perspective of a diverse group of educational professionals together in one room (using the School District Learning Team model**).

**What is a Learning Team
Learning teams are small groups of educators that meet to engage in a professional growth experience focused on improving instructional practice and student learning. Learning teams are facilitated by a variety of educators who have expertise in the topical/curricular area, and in facilitation. Two to three hour meetings occur six times in the year and take the following format: individual write, sharing, discussion, work-time, reporting back and a commitment for the next meeting.
Learning teams offer an opportunity for teachers to meet in a meaningful learning environment. My last post on Articulate Your Thinking came out of a conversation in a learning team. They are an innovative approach to Professional Development in that they provide teachers with an opportunity to engage in ‘learning conversations’ that we want to have, but never seem to be able to find the time to have!

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From:David
Sent:May 10, 2004 9:55 PM
To: [Our Math Learning Team, my principal, and a few other people whose opions I value]
Subject: School Goal(s)

Hey,
I’ve been bouncing these ideas around and would like to get your slant.

The BIG IDEA
One overall school goal of”Articulate Thinking”

Building the skills necessary to develop articulate students who can express their thoughts in meaningful, articulate ways.

The Philosophical Bent
I don’t really care if my daughters, upon graduation, can identify the subordinate clause in a sentence or if they can tell me how to find the volume of a cone… I do care that they can express themselves in thoughtful, meaningful ways and demonstrate social responsibility in their decision making.

The GOAL(s)
1 main goal that we always focus on… especially with regards to our all-writes/ or our testing,
3 sub goals, but we only focus on one per year… across the curriculum!

Main Goal: Social Responsibility
Sub goals:
Year 1 – Structure of writing – Form, grammar, etc.
Year 2 – Verbal – speeches, presentations etc.
Year 3 – Visual/Spacial – charts, data, displaying information, etc.
(It could work that we divide this into terms and do all 3 per year, but I think 1 per year lets us keep it simple and focussed!)

The Buy In
So, how do we focus on one per year… across the curriculum? And how do we get ALL teachers involved?
In every class, we make a commitment to challenge students with a critical thinking challenge monthly or bimonthly. The topic of the challenge is course specific and preferably integrated with other subjects.
Examples
CAPP: Casa Guatemala, Multiculturalism, Bullying etc.
Social Studies: Current Issues, Religions etc.
Math: Problem Solving with real life application, Dream house, Planning a party, etc.
Science: E3 – Environment, Experiments, Ethics
Explorations: (examples)
Tech-Ed: Build a birdhouse that fits these minimum requirements… but these are the sizes of wood you are limited to…
Computers: Use [insert program here] to present the following information in a meaningful way
Home Ec.: These are the sizes of the individual pieces of material you will need for this sewing project…
place them on this 1m x 1m piece of material so that you waste the least amount of material.
*Key idea… focus on critical challenges that force students to express and justify their ideas.
We have the opportunity to build and sequence these during pro-d!

How the Sub Goals work
Year 1 – Structure of writing – All of the challenges above have a written component and EVERY teacher has a part of their marking rubric factor in Form/Convention/Grammar … Structure of writing.
Year 2 – Verbal – All of the challenges above have a presentation component and EVERY teacher has a part of their marking rubric factor in verbal communication of ideas.
Year 3 – Visual/Spacial – All of the challenges above contain data collection and/or graphing etc., and EVERY teacher has a part of their marking rubric factor in visual representation of the information/ material.

This is not done for every project, but in each class, one of these assignments is expected every 2-3 months.

Back to the BIG GOAL
***The sub goals allow us to micro-teach the necessary skills needed to improve how we express ideas in written form, in our verbal communication and our ability to visually display information… skills that allow us to express our thoughts in articulate ways.
The main goal… Social Responsibility.. is where we collect our data to see how we are progressing… to give us feedback on how well students are doing, (and for that matter how well we are doing at teaching them these skills across the curriculum).
Once a term, or twice a year, we test kids using a critical question based on Social Responsibility topics. These would still be taught in CAPP and Advisory, and hopefully also taught in other areas… looking at the environment in Science, waste reduction in Tech Ed and Home Ec. etc.

How students are expected to respond to the critical question would depend on what year/sub goal we are focusing on:
Year 1 – Structure of writing – Essays
Example: Moral dilemmas
Year 2 – Verbal – speeches, presentations, etc.
Example: Speech on Bullying; Develop an Anti-smoking ad campaign… You must ’sell’ this idea to your class.
Year 3 – Visual/Spacial – charts, data, displaying information, etc.
Example: Develop a 10 question survey on peer pressure and display your findings in a meaningful way.

Well there you go!
I’d like to hear what you think,

Dave

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Gary wrote:

Ahh, what do you want me to say? It sounds like it could be a unifying concept that the school could rally around. Kind of like Joey’s old EBS, but with an academic slant.

I might argue that these goals are already taught by your Language Art teachers, so the main benefit is that everyone is working towards the same outcome. To that point, the LA teachers touch on those skills every year. The main problem, as I see it, isn’t that we aren’t doing a good job teaching these skills, it is that we have 5 – 20 % of the kids who don’t get it. These are the kids that we need to focus our goals on – these are the ones where academic interventions are required. If we add more teachers teaching a concept, the real question is to what extent are we going to improve the ability of the 5 – 20 %ers? If we aren’t going to improve their skills, then don’t set the goals.

In saying that, perhaps all of our students need to be more articulate thinkers? If so, than this is a well thought out plan!

Good luck,
Gary

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David wrote:

It often comes down to that 5-20% doesn’t it?
I wonder what we are doing now that isn’t working with that group? Is there some school somewhere that handles this group well?
I’m not sure I challenge this group in a way that gets the most out of them, but then I spend too much time on giving them info (not a lot of time on the 3 higher levels of blooms taxonomy). If we challenged kids to think about ‘no right answer’ kinds of questions in every class, maybe we would be challenging and hopefully exciting some of these kids… maybe this is wishful thinking.

I can’t help but wonder what is wrong with the structure of education that limits us from connecting with these kids???? If you built your own school what would be different?

Maybe a good discussion for our book club… not ‘perfect world’ education, but given the resources we have, what would we do differently if we had the budget of a current school and carte blanche permission to make the school look and operate any way we felt?

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Gary wrote:

Well Dave…

One must first challenge some age old assumptions. Our system is built on the belief that “every kid can learn.” Second, we believe that every teacher can teach every child. Thirdly, we assume that every child should be “with their appropriate age grouping.”

If we want to unlock the potential of our students, these assumptions must be examined.

Can every child learn? Developmental psychologist will answer by saying “maybe.” Developmentally, many of our students, especially at the middle level, are stunted in their thinking. They lack the ability to “integrate” the sensory world. They lack the ability to temper dual thoughts. They even lack the adaptive process that we assume all people possess. So their answer to that question is “maybe.” For students to learn, Gordon Neufeld says they must be ready.

Can every teacher teach every child? Come on, we all know that we can’t be all things to everyone. Even good teachers will eventually meet their match.

Finally, should every child be with their appropriate age? I’m of the opinion that the greatest thing in our kids lives is their peers. So much so, that peer pressure is ruining their lives. Students don’t come to school to learn, they come to school to meet their friends. A true cart before the horse analogy. Again, Neufeld would suggest that this very notion of peer influence is what is causing some kids to be unable to learn. He believes peers stunt our growth and block us from learning.

So, the solution?

I will put a computer in every students hand. I would keep students in “similar age groupings”, but I wouldn’t guarantee their same age grouping. I would differentiate all learning, but I would try to cluster learning objectives so that teachers can continue to play a crucial role in learning and still be the main facilitator for learning. The computer, in its ideal form, is the tool that allows us to individualize student work. It will allow us to communicate in real time, learn in real time, and assess in real time. It will be the lever to better learning. Teachers, however, will need to be better than ever before. They will be the fuel for the flame.

My middle school would thus have grade 6 – 8 classes. Some students would remain in the class for only a year before going on to grade 9. Others might stay for four years. Teams of teachers would still work together to deliver the curriculum, but the interaction and model would be much different than today. Some genius will lay out the curriculum into standards and objectives that are clear and easy to follow. Teachers will bring the objectives to life, and technology will allow students to demonstrate their learning in ways unimaginable only a few short years ago. Problem based learning and rich task learning will be for the masses. For our 5 – 20 %, reading recovery, math recovery, writing recovery will be their focus. We won’t be ashamed to actually help people progress.

Finally, students will come to school to learn.

Is it possible?

G

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My thoughts on this conversation:

It was great to re-read this and see where my thinking was 3 years ago… it was before I saw the value of technology in education, and yet it wasn’t very long ago!

I thought this was pretty insightful of Gary, “Teachers will bring the objectives to life, and technology will allow students to demonstrate their learning in ways unimaginable only a few short years ago. Problem based learning and rich task learning will be for the masses.”

This idea of many students not fitting into school, or rather schools not fitting many students, has been a something I have considered a lot… especially in my Square Peg, Round Hole post. The concept of being socially responsible applies equally if not more so in this technological age, (note: my Blogging Rules).

“One overall school goal of ‘Articulate Thinking’. Building the skills necessary to develop articulate students who can express their thoughts in meaningful, articulate ways.” This might have been a lofty goal three years ago, but after reading Thomas Friedman’s (original version of) The World Is Flat 3.0 and watching David Warlick, maybe it is time that education focussed on, as Gary suggests ‘differentiating all learning’. It is the side trips of learning that students enjoy. Maybe when we are better at meeting students needs, they will have the motivation to meaningfully participate… and therefore be more compelled to be the ‘Articulate Thinkers’ they need to be in the 21st Century!

In a comment I posted on Wesley’s blog, I pay this compliment, “A great summary that SYNTHESIZES and ADDS MEANING.” Then I suggest, “I would add those two to your sentence: “It’s not just about SEARCHING, it’s about FINDING and VALIDATING.”
…and that is exactly what Wesley has done with his post, he synthesizes what the article says, but he goes further… he draws from other sources, and new meaning is added. For example, Wesley disagrees (as do I) with the article’s suggestion of greater rigor and standardized testing. He links us to his podcast #79 titled, ‘Reject Rigor: Embrace Differentiation, Flexibility, and High Expectations’.

But there is a dichotomy here: Our ‘educational language’ around standardization and accountability juxtaposed with differentiation and flexibility… we seem to have two mutually exclusive camps, yet there seems to be a move to embrace both. To embrace both is to accomplish neither.

As this post quickly becomes a tribute to Wesley Fryer, (the newest addition to my Netvibes feed-reader), I think I will quote him one more time. From: ‘Apprenticeship learning and critical thinking‘

“Learners are not in school so they can take tests, be tested, and be translated metaphorically into statistics that are aggregated into charts and graphs used by politicians to secure their elective offices. Learners are in school to LEARN, and the confusion which abounds regarding the proper role of assessments today is a key part of educational reforms our nation desperately needs.”

“We do NOT need more testing, more rigorous testing, and/or more end-of-course examinations in our schools. Testing has never “saved” and will never “save us” from the challenges which face us in the educational environment. Only high quality, professional, caring, passionate teachers can provide what our students deserve and in many cases desperately need: A differentiated, challenging environment of customized learning that involves regular dialog and authentic assessment…”

The challenge now is recognizing that this fundamentally changes a teacher’s practice… we are on a new road, but I don’t see a roadmap being developed. I think we lack the perspective to make the map. Current assessment strategies limit our vision. Current subject-disciplines also limit possibilities and compartmentalize assessment using a different paradigm than is needed.

We need to be adept at creating flexible, differentiated learning environments

We need to be computer literate, and also be able to teach a new kind of literacy. (Warlick)

We need to challenge students by asking questions, guiding their learning, and helping them to develop their own personal learning environments.

We need to teach students to synthesize information and add new meaning.

We must change what we do. (And we need visionary leaders to lead the way!)

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Having said what we need to do… I am contemplating ‘What we are” (as teachers). I think my next post will be a tribute to teachers, but not the kind you would expect after a post like this…

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I’m back, not even an hour after posting this! Several times I came across the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, first here and here on Wesley’s blog, then back on Netvibes where I picked up Cool Cat Teacher’s del.icio.us post… which led me to an article by none other than Wesley Fryer once again!

Well, third time’s a charm. It clicked that my use of ‘Add new Meaning’ in this post was an attempt to describe the CREATION of new knowledge as seen on the revised taxonomy above. I am wondering what happened to Synthesis? Is this part of Evaluation?

In a final dedication to Wesley Fryer, I will end with this quote from the TechLearning article:

“We need visionary educational leadership that understands and effectively communicates the importance of emphasizing student CREATIVITY and the creation of original (and remixed) knowledge products.”

Thanks Wesley!

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Sunday March 11th, 2007

This is great: Cognitive Taxonomy Circle

I found this at Jeff Utecht’s U Tech Tips, his source is this American Psychological Association blog post.