Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
To the unshifted: Shift or retire… regardless of your age and number of years experience. We have the means to teach differently, now! It doesn’t start tomorrow, it starts today. Pick one thing you don’t like about your practice and change it. Find one thing that engages your students, and has them take over the learning that happens in the room, and do it. Empower, inspire, engage and be the lead learner in your classroom or your school.
There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.
To the shifting:Do not go quietly into your classroom. It is an extremely exciting time to be in education. Do not be overwhelmed. A great waterfall begins with a single drop. Information flows too quickly to absorb all that we want to. Things will not flow for you if you try to do too much. If you try a new tool, ask yourself why am I using this? Do not confuse the pointing finger with the moon. What is the learning intention? Stay true to what you want to accomplish and take advantage of tools to help you and your students find your way. Find small successes on your path, let good work and engaged students be your reward.
What we think, we become.
To the shifted: You have an obligation to serve others. The students in your room are a priority, but so too are your colleagues. You are a leader by the default of knowing the way. Nurture your colleagues like you nurture your students in your class. Be the lead learner. Learn with them. Share your enthusiasm and accept your position of leadership with grace and humility.
The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.
A year ago I went to see my friends Dave Sands and Brian Kuhn presenting to parents that were part of a 1-1 (one laptop per child) pilot program at a Middle School. Little did I know that I’d be moved to that same school as the Vice Principal in February, and that I’d be co-presenting with Brian, to the parents in the program, one year later.
Brian did a great job preparing the presentation and with similar philosophies it was very easy to contribute meaningfully to what he had prepared.
The key messages we brought up sounded eerily like my 3rd presentation at BLC08 in Boston, but I’ll have more on that later.
As we were giving the presentation it occurred to me that 1-to-1 is about exposing teachers (and parents) to possibilities as much as it is about doing the same for students. The fact is that not long from now we won’t need 1-1 classrooms because students will be bringing their own computers/movie cameras/mp3 players/web browsers/instant messengers/calculators/agendas to school with them:
I predict that in about 5 short years almost every Middle School student will own an iPhone or its’ equivalent, and they will be connecting to our wireless network via bluetooth for absolutely free. Students will be ready, willing and able to use these tools in our classroom… will teachers be ready enough to maximize the opportunities and learning experiences these tools (coming to our classrooms for free) will provide?
I’ve been hearing a message from a lot from technology-using teachers recently… “I can’t go back”! Teachers are beginning to see that technology in the classroom is more of a necessity than an opportunity.
One-to-one is not a program that can be sustained across an entire district, it would be too expensive. However this program is ideal to pilot with willing teachers… teachers who recognize that the classroom of the future will give every learner access to tools that would have costed a fortune just a few years ago… tools that some students are already bringing to our classrooms… tools that students will bring to our classrooms of the not-so-distant-future in abundance!
I chat with some ‘familiar’ people, Alec Couros and Kelly Christopherson, and ask them to help me out with a Pro-D session I’ll be running with student teachers on the 25th. Chrissy says to ‘Twitter’ her and she will help out. (She actually says, “Twitter us and we will help”). I don’t follow Chrissy on Twitter so I go to my open Twitter window and request to follow her.
I see that I have a new Gmail message in my inbox so I open another window to find out that it is Kris. She is asking if I had seen her new post, which is titled Web2.0 Compatible.
I’m listening to the meeting, I postpone popping open windows to the links Vance is referring to, or checking the live chat on uStream so that I can read Kris’ post. I notice a small typo in Kris’s second paragraph. I also notice a green dot by her name in Google Chat indicating that she is online. I open a chat box and quote her typo back to her.
Kris replies back minutes later that the typo is fixed, (I hit refresh and it is). Kris’ post is about how ‘her generation’ is totally web2.0 compatible.
I continue following the meeting where a participant is talking about how these new applications are now ‘net’ applications and not ‘pay-for’ software. I realize that other than my computer and Internet connection, all this linking and watching and listening and engaging is free.
The most amazing part to all this: It was almost midnight here and I was ‘chatting’ with a student, reading her writing, and offering (minor) feedback… while ’sitting in’ on a staff meeting at the International School Bangkok, Thailand… ‘talking’ to Kelly in Saskatchewan and Alec in Regina, as well as others in Australia and The UK… and ‘meeting’ Chrissy, a new connection from New Zealand, who has offered to Twitter-in and help demonstrate networking/connectivity at my Pro-D session next week in the suburbs of Vancouver.
All this happened in a shorter time than it took me to write this post!
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Postscript:
While getting links for this post, I discovered that Chrissy also wrote about this experience. Here is a great image she uploaded. Click on it to get to her post.
…and back again moments later. Apparently this was not a staff meeting, but a session in an un-conference. Kim just linked to the conference wiki page via Twitter.
Originally posted: January 16th, 2008
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
This was a very powerful expression of how my learning has shifted from searching for information to seeking interaction. It also speaks of ‘richness’.
I want students to know this kind of learning… in school. I want them to be active members in a global learning network. I want them to follow their own interests, to make choices about what information they will choose to pay attention to, what to check later, and what to filter out. I want students to be 21st Century learners.
“How can the next president better help small business and entrepreneurs thrive?”
That was the question that US Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama asked on LinkedIn. A day later I posted response #1421. Here it is:
The definition for ‘Entrepreneur’ came from Google using ‘define: entrepreneur’, but I did not link to it since the link does not work.(www.onlinewbc.gov/docs/starting/glossary.html).
I don’t think that the purpose of our educational system is to ‘produce entrepreneurs’ but it seems fairly evident to me that we should be fostering the kind of thinking that entrepreneurs possess in our flat world.
I also don’t think that we need to cater specifically to gifted students… on the contrary, what we do to fill their educational needs, to challenge them, and to catalyze their creativity, can (and will) help every student become more ingenious.
“Is framing the debate of transformation as an evolutionary or revolutionary process the correct way to look at the current situation? Might there be a better set of metaphors? How might the notion of emergence fit this proposition? What might Paulo Freire think?”
I think the answer is in the question… it isn’t an evolutionary or revolutionary process… it is a transformation that has qualities of both evolution and revolution. There has been a metamorphosis in the way people connect, relate, communicate, and inquire. With regards to schools, education, and learning, you might say that we are in a cocoon right now. Some of us only know what it means to be a caterpillar, others see the potential of being a butterfly, and none of us know where our wings can take us.
We are definitely out of the cocoon, and although we still aren’t sure where our wings can take us, we are beginning to fly.
I think the transformation has been from groups of educators going in similar direction to a single (loose) network of learners helping, and connecting to, each other.
Comments on the original post:
Here is the cookie-cutter email response. I guess with it being a ‘business’ question I should not have expected any significant mention of education.Barack Obama wrote:Hi Dave-Thanks for participating in Barack’s question on LinkedIn Answers – our campaign will review all of these answers in the days ahead.Barack is committed to helping small businesses and believes they are at the heart of the American economy. He is committed to expanding opportunities and easing the everyday pressures so many businesses face by cutting their health care costs, improving access to capital, and investing in innovation and development.He plans to fix our health care crisis and enable more small businesses to provide affordable care to their employees. He will expand loan programs for small businesses and create a national network of public-private business incubators. He also will invest in women-owned businesses, increase minority access to capital, increase supports for businesses in rural areas, and work to close the digital divide that limits the growth potential of many urban and rural small businesses.
In addition, Barack will support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by creating a national network of public-private business incubators. Business incubators facilitate the critical work of entrepreneurs in creating start-up companies. They offer help designing business plans, provide physical space, identify and address problems affecting all small businesses within a given community, and give advice on a wide range of business practices, including reducing overhead costs. Business incubators will engage the expertise and resources of local institutions of higher education and successful private sector business to help ensure that small businesses have both a strong plan and the resources for long-term success. Obama will invest $250 million per year to increase the number and size of incubators in disadvantaged communities throughout the country.
We appreciate immensely your willingness to share your insights and suggestions on these issues and your help in achieving these goals.
For more information on Barack ideas for improving America visit: www.barackobama.com/issues
Thanks,
Scott & Becky @ Obama HQ
David Truss on Friday, 14 September 2007, 21:46 CEST
Your blog is inspiring, and can serve as a resource for teachers in the trenches. I teach 3rd grade, and I am seeing the differentiation of technological literacy…some are learning what an icon is, some can navigate to a research link, and others are making amazing connections. It is frustrating to have a curriculum that includes just “keyboarding” and it starts 1/2 way through the school year. Student need to engage in critical thinking and be able to read and think across several technological literacies. I plan to really explore what you have here and find ideas for implementation. -ABC Coach
ABC Coach on Saturday, 27 October 2007, 17:59 CEST
To ABC Coach,Thank you for your kind words.I’m beginning to think that it is time we threw the curriculum out the window and rebuilt it from scratch. Start with the ‘end in mind’ and meaningfully engage students in critical thinking and 21st Century Literacy, rather than just creating a series of patchwork adaptations and solutions. -Dave
David Truss on Saturday, 27 October 2007, 23:07 CEST
Spring brings new beginnings just as a school year comes to an end. As a teacher it is difficult not to be reflective in June.
Special moments remembered, peppered lightly with what could have been, and never transpired. The nostalgia seems to loom more so this year as I contemplate a move after my nine-year career in a single school.
Two things I have come to realize: I have been fortunate to have worked with some amazing people in an amazing school, and it is time to move on.
My stint has not been without changes:
• the school changed from a 7-9 Junior High, to a 6-8 Middle School
• 2 principals and 6 different vice principals
• only 3 teachers have been there longer than I have
• I have taught in 6 different classrooms
• I’ve taught 2 different grades
• I’ve been both a Humanities and a Math/Science teacher
• I’ve only repeated my same course load twice in 9 years
My stint has not been without challenges: With a wonderful student dying in her sleep days after she finished Grade 9, and job action (twice), being two of the more emotionally draining experiences.
Yet my stint at this school has been wonderful in so many ways. Imagine being hired right out of the education program and put into a school with 13 other brand new teachers – about half the teaching staff! We had an unbelievable year of learning from each other. Every time you walked into another teacher’s room you were ‘wow-ed’ by what you saw… and in the spirit of learning, there wasn’t a sense of one-ups-man-ship that can happen in such a situation, but rather a desire to offer an equally engaging experience in your own classroom. The people I shared those early teaching experiences with are now my closest friends.
And now it is time to move on. I said that four, three, two years ago, and last year too, and still find myself at the same school because it has offered me so much, and yet this time I am sure that I will find another ‘home’.
I have posted on a few very different High School jobs, including English/Socials in a Gifted Program, a Math 9/10 position, a Planning 10 and Graduation Transition Coordination position, and a Leadership/PE/Student Services position… each one desirable for many differing, but equally intriguing reasons. I already know that I won’t be offered the first one, thankfully as it will also be taught with Grade 12 English, (which I have no desire to teach). I was encouraged to apply for that job by a parent of a gifted student in my class going into the program, that in itself was a wonderful compliment. I have just spent some time preparing for interviews, happening tomorrow, for the next two jobs I posted for. I have a passion for Math, and know that I would enjoy focusing all of my attention into one subject area… (hopefully with some access to technology:-) I would also love the opportunity to contribute to the developing Graduation Transitions Program in a school, and perhaps use wikis to coordinate some of the large scale school-wide events organized in order to meet the graduation requirements of every student. Also, I would be interested in implementing an e-portfolio into the Planning 10 course. The final posting would include teaching Leadership at a High School, a position I have wanted to do for years, and something that would make my Grade 5 Leadership/Transition Retreats easier to expand into a district initiative next year.
It is a bit boggling that my interests could take me in so many different directions, and yet I feel ready for which ever path I have the opportunity to follow.
I have also been reflecting on this blog over the past while. It has been wonderful documenting my trials, tribulations, and triumphs over the past few months, and the cathartic nature of blogging is one that I can no longer do without. I teach, therefore I blog. However, I have slowly realized that I am a slow-blogger who creates posts in a crock pot, not a pressure cooker. Recently, I have found it hard to write, and for that matter hard to engage in reading blogs. I have had a few tabs open for days now, with great postshalf-read. For this reason, I will be taking a small hiatus, probably fully unplugging for a while in early July. As I near that break, I can’t help but wonder how my blog will change, depending on which job I have the opportunity to hold next year?
I wonder how we manage to read the same posts, roughly around the same time. I remember your comment in my blog about finding there a link you had lost. I had also bookmarked Barbara Ganley’s post on slow-blogging for a future post. I think I belong there too. The good thing about your slow-blogging is that once you do post, I do not scan you in my RSS, I really want to slow down and read you.
Just echoing this to myself: “I teach, therefore I blog”. I want to make sure I remember it.
2. David, it has been great getting to know you through your blog. I feel that, at times, you were just around the corner and our conversations would pick up where they left off. I know that whatever direction you go, your dedication to students and learning will shine. Enjoy your well deserved time away and don’t fret about the blog – the writing will take care of itself. It always does. Take care!
These comments come from two of several bloggers whom have become my teachers and friends. I have learned from them that I don’t need a Face-to-Face encounter in order to build a meaningful relationship. What has struck me with both of them is how our digital lives have had uncanny parallels, and through commenting on my and their blogs, we have become ‘linked’ in many ways.
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This was my last post for over 2 months, I ended up taking the entire summer off. As you will see in future posts, I took the Graduation Transitions Program Coordinator position along with teaching Planning 10. Little did I know that it would be a one-semester gig before being promoted to Vice Principal.
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I think my blogging ‘voice’ changed after the break. This was a ‘last’ post in many ways for me. That said, it was a very healthy change. I think, as I look back, I see a lot of frustration, and as I look forward from this point I see a lot of hope and opportunity.
“Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours”
I can still get whiny that ‘things aren’t moving fast enough’ or ‘we need more resources’, but in the end what I seek are opportunities for our students to soar and I can’t do that when I’m assuming limitations that prevent this from happening.
I think this post should be mandatory for every student teacher to read before they graduate.
I can hear the rebuttals, and yes there are some sweeping generalizations made… but rather than being defensive, I think it is our duty as educators to make things better… in EVERY classroom. We have the tools, and the understanding of pedagogy to make things better even though logistics, economics and circumstance can impede us. What we need are the exemplars, the role models, and the educational leaders to help us get where we need to be.
Today I went to a Learning Team Celebration where everyone on learning teams shared their successes with regards to action based research, done with colleagues, to explore areas of interest. Learning teams (as described here) promote dialogue among peers looking at areas such as the use of reading strategies, social responsibility programs, numeracy initiatives, and integrating technology to engage students in more meaningful ways. I have realized over the past few months that it isn’t technology per se that will change education. Instead, it is collaboration of teachers using best practice, and of students interacting with us and each other, that will truly and meaningfully change education. Technology, such as web2.0 tools, will help make the process easier, and speed the process up.
Consider this: I have had the honour of teaching with some truly amazing teachers, and yet I have spent little or no time observing them teach. I have not been able to tap into some ‘masterful’ resources just a few classroom doors away from me. Collaboration is key! Is it ironic or apropos that a post about da Vinci, a recluse that hid his work, is a post that highlights the value of collaborating?
This is how we kill each trait that may yield another Da Vinci:1. Curiosita (fromHow to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day) What: Intense and insatiable curiosity; constantly learning due to a desire to ask and answer questions The Murder: In schools, for the most part, students learn only what the teacher decides they will learn. Student questions will often go unanswered if they lead away from the material (go off-topic), or if there are time constraints on what must be learned that leave no time for these questions in class.
7. Connessione (from “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”) What? Acceptance and appreciation for the interconnectedness of everything in life; interdisciplinary approaches and thinking The Murder: Facts and concepts are taught in specific classes that are independent of each other, and students are moved from individual class to individual class without knowledge of how the two might be connected. Boundaries like that between art and science are rarely crossed or their connectedness even explained. Facts and ideas might be taught with no explanation of the links between them (ie, learning individual details and facts but not the big picture).
Read the whole post! If you are an educator, then I challenge you to do two things:
Congratulate yourself! Recognize that your are a good teacher, and that you do things within your classroom that do not hinder your students as some of these generalizations do. See the positive. Noticing the good that we do, and acknowledging it as such, encourages us to continue and improve.
Challenge yourself! Recognize that you have the opportunity to challenge students in new ways, and know that you too are learning… share your challenges with your peers, seek out opportunities to collaborate, with your colleague across the hall or your web friend across the world. WE will make education better than it ever has been!
Originally posted: May 30th, 2007
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
Kris is not just a former student, she is a current teacher… my teacher. I would not have this blog up-and-running if it were not for her tech support. Also, her del.icio.us links are fodder for many of my posts.
Learning is a journey best shared, not led. We are nodes in each other’s learning networks…
Two weeks ago I bought a Wii Remote to create a Tim Wang Multi-touch Whiteboard. I’ve been talking with our computer teacher, Stan, about getting this going and then on Tuesday a student, Raj, caught wind of what we were planning to do. Wednesday morning Raj was downloading software from his phone to Stan’s computer, he also created two infra-red pens out of highlighters and push-button switches. Thursday morning before lunch I walked into Stan’s class to find Raj demonstrating the multi-touch whiteboard to his class. This morning he perfected an adjustable stand to hold the Wii Remote, (it was his second prototype).
I’m going to make a very harsh statement here and I’m going to stand behind it:
STUDENTS ARE CAPABLE OF FAR MORE THAN WE GIVE THEM CREDIT: SCHOOLS WILL BETTER MEET THE NEEDS OF STUDENTS WHEN EDUCATORS DO A BETTER JOB COLLABORATING WITH STUDENTS TO CREATE MEANINGFUL LEARNING EXPERIENCES.
Here is Carolyn Foote’s comment on my original post. I love the line: “I think with enthusiasm, innovation, and collaboration that we can make a difference for students.” See Carolyn’s recent post: Empowering ourselves to empower our students.
Thank you for sharing that incredible post. I’ve already emailed it to several people at my own campus.
I also appreciate your response.
A group of us read Whole New Mind this year, and I think more than anything I’ve read in a long time, it really conveyed to me the “boat” that we too often miss as educators, in terms of supporting the creative thinking of our students.
And on a site visit that my campus made to schools in California, we visited High Tech High and saw the power of cross curricular connections. We’ve sent a team of our teachers there for a summer workshop on interdisciplinary connections, and I can’t wait until they get back (wish I was going too, but it’s during NECC).
I think with enthusiasm, innovation, and collaboration that we can make a difference for students.
And I agree that the web 2.0 tools can make that process so much easier. And we as educators, like this student, need support and encouragement, and the community that many of our interactions over the blogs or on sites like Ning offer, help us “keep the faith” as well.
I’ve been having this conversation in a few different places, and now I need to put my thoughts together. Here is a summary of some discussions and e-mail messages, a Wesley Fryer’s post “Advice for designing the school of the future” and my comment there, and my forum post in the School 2.0 social network on Ning.
It all started here:
My daughter’s school is going through seismic upgrading. 2 years of noise and upheaval… 1/2 the school sealed off, with the kids in portables, then a year later the other half goes to the portables and the kids in the potables move to the newly revamped wing. They are practically taking the roof off, half a building at a time.
After a PAC meeting I asked the principal what technological improvements were going to be made to the school…
NONE!
Not going wireless (apparently too expensive!?!?)
Not even extra electrical outlets in the rooms!
Certainly not a consideration to redesign a library built to store walls of encyclopedias. (I’ll discuss this point later)
The problem is the financial handcuffs placed on the principal to meaningfully do anything to improve the school at this time. Why? Because money set aside for seismic upgrades is from very different coffers than those of renovations/improvements. What does this mean? It means that we won’t spend $10,000 now to wire the school with extra plugs and create a wireless network… but we will necessarily have to do so, for $25,000 in two years, (when the walls and roof have been seismically upgraded).’ [These costs are an approximate assumption of mine, and not based on any specific research done on my part.]
This well said response was given to me by Brian, our district’s Manager of Information Services. He responded to my e-mail and also wrote a response to my comment on Wesley Fryer’s post:
“I agree wholeheartedly with Wesley’s school 2.0 description and David’s concerns. The culture in bricks and mortor schools and districts takes a long time to shift… The challenge not specifically highlighted in David’s comments though is the how government and / or local district funding rules work. For a seismic project, we are very limited in what else we can “add on” to the overall scope of work. And, there are no other pots off money to draw from to “do the right thing” with the renovation. It’s unfortunate but our reality…That said, our vision for schools would encompass the school 2.0 idea. With time, the vision can be realized.”
Brian has been working on a district learning portal, and so he knows the value of having connected classrooms. But the ‘right thing’ can not be done at this time.
I had an interesting conversation with a former student’s parent a few days ago. She works in construction for a number of different school boards, and has done so for over 15 years. Although she isn’t working specifically on my daughter’s school, she told me how easy it would be to first, make the school wireless (a job that literally would take minutes during the construction), and then also to run the wire to add electrical outlets to the classrooms, while the seismic upgrading is taking place. She agreed with me that financially, this task would be significantly cheaper during construction. And in her words, the reason this won’t happen is because in the case of every district she has worked for:
“They Do. They Think. They Re-Do!”
At first, I took her words in jest, but as the conversation continued, and she went back to that phrase (without exaggeration) over a dozen times. I then realized that she truly was talking from experience. I could see her frustration, she shared my exasperation, but could offer no solutions. Just as has been mentioned above, she reiterated that there is simply no additional money to do these kind of improvements. She stressed that this was especially the case with seismic upgrades because these upgrades have, in the past, been grossly over budget due to ‘add-ons’ that clever principals and district superintendents have added to the upgrades in the past. This has resulted in very strict limits placed on what can be done while this construction is happening.
‘We can’t afford it now, so we will pay significantly more to do the same thing later!’ I find this so asinine.
Another aspect to this has been the design of the school library. My daughter’s school has a computer lab next door to the library, but there is no door between the two rooms. I wonder how hard it would be to place a sliding door, or remove the wall altogether?
In his post “Advice for designing the school of the future” Wesley Fryer suggests:
“I think the school of the future should be centered around the library, and include not only great places to read but also inviting places to collaborate and work together, sort of like a Starbucks atmosphere. I think the library should have a design and performance studio, which would permit students to craft high quality media products for the global stage: the web. I think an educational learning portal should serve as a primary learning centerpiece. One of the big things we need to do as school 2.0 educators is redefine our identities as teachers: It’s ridiculous for us to attempt to be experts on all the content subjects we teach. We really need to embrace the model of facilitating project-based learning, so the physical structures of school should support that pedagogical framework.”
Here is part of my comment/response to his post:
I agree with you, “One of the big things we need to do as school 2.0 educators is redefine our identities as teachers” however, as you say, “the physical structures of school should support that pedagogical framework.”
As someone who is struggling with the availability of technological resources, I can say that the framework really should come first!
A question to you Wesley, what can we do as teachers, as members of society who have seen the outside of Plato’s education cave.. who know that there is more to life than shadows on our school hall walls… what can we do to tear down those walls and build schools that are designed for school2.0 rather than school1890?
I think that the reality is that many brand new schools being built today are not fully embracing the possibilities of the future. Partly because we don’t really know what that future looks like, and partly because of financial constraints.
I posed the following question in the Ning School 2.0 forum:
In my daughter’s school, I will fight for wireless, and I will suggest more power outlets in the classes, (so that eventually if they get, perhaps, a row of computers on a wall, or even a mobile computer lab, at least students can power their computers… but what else would you ask for?
And after a few days I’ve only had one response, (which I will get to in a moment). What I find interesting is that nlowell has an interesting forum post asking, “What is the purpose of the classroom?” Go no further than the very first response to see Heather Burlesson’s poignant statement:
“I don’t think we can continue the industrial model. Today’s students do NOT want to be robots, and they have the tools at hand to reject all our attempts to force them into such a mold.
How can we actively engage them while satisfying the system? I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m fairly certain any change will have to start within the classroom itself. Transforming the “brick and mortar” into a place the kids *want* to go to – My*pace for the flesh and blood part of the day – that’s the challenge we are facing at the moment.”
In essence, we may not like the current ‘industrial model’, but we really don’t know where education is going. This makes concrete suggestions difficult… there really is no blue print (no road map as they say) to the classroom of (as little as) 25 years from now.
I really loved David Warlick’s response to this kind of question on his blog – his proposal? The one non-budget-blowing thing he would do first is put all school furniture on wheels! Think about this –one of the key elements of project based learning and indeed, practicing 21st century skills is student collaboration. Let’s move those desks around – set up collaborative work space, and a place for presentations.
I agree that the school library is the learning and information center of the school – especially in the age of technology. If creating collaborative work spaces in classrooms seems difficult to navigate, then start with the library! This is where you’ll find staff who truely understand the concept of School 2.0 – and how to collaborate with teachers to create incredible learning experiences for students using 21st century tools and resources.
I think that Warlick’s idea of the classes no longer needing to be ‘anchored’ is indeed a good starting point. It invites the opportunity for change, and it prepares us to be prepared to try things in new ways, while also encouraging opportunities for collaboration.
So now that battle must rage on. I will be meeting with my daughter’s school principal next week, and it is my goal to create a ‘wish list’. It may be a moot point, but to me we cannot complain about the situation and then ’sit idly by’ and allow nothing to happen.
I welcome other suggestions, other wishes, that you would want to see during a ‘renovation’ such as this…
I had the meeting with my daughter’s school principal and I was very impressed with what she was advocating for. I also liked that the Library design was being thoughtfully considered. On a current related note, check out Alan November’s podcast interview with 16 year-old Zaki Tahari who created a virtual mock-up of the newly planned library at his school, with his own unique design elements added!
On the topic of changing schools, I think I have reached some resolve around the idea that schools will never be caught up, or up to date, with the technological needs they require. That said, and accepted, I think that we have great potential to do some really creative and innovative things with the money we do have to spend.
The challenge we have now is deciding what we can do now that creates opportunities rather than obstacles later on.
In my last post about my Numeracy Tasks Pro-D session with Peter Liljedahl, I mentioned an e-mail I wrote almost 3 years ago. I dug up that e-mail and found an interesting ‘conversation’ between Gary Kern and I. My comments are after the e-mails.
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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!
Originally posted: January 29th, 2007
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
As you can see, when I originally posted this -almost-three-year-old- correspondence, I already reflected on it. So now I’ll put the question out there: ‘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?’
“In an age of overflowing information and proliferating media, kids need to rapidly process what’s coming at them and distinguish between what’s reliable and what isn’t. “It’s important that students know how to manage it, interpret it, validate it, and how to act on it,” says Dell executive Karen Bruett, who serves on the board of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, a group of corporate and education leaders focused on upgrading American education.”
Wesley says, “It’s not just about SEARCHING, it’s about FINDING and VALIDATING.”
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’.
“High expectations are important and needed, but not within a rigorous environment that does not encourage differentiation and flexibility within classrooms. Learning is inherently a dynamical process, not isolated events that can be entirely centrally planned, and our educational language as well as policies should recognize this. We need to embrace differentiation, flexibility and high expectations for all students.”
That’s a poster quote right there:
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.
“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 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.
Originally posted: December 26th, 2006
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
I’ve added the comments on my original post into the first comment below.
This introduction to the *new* Blooms Taxonomy was sort of a re-awakening for me. A reminder of what really matters in teaching and learning. It was around this time that I started to take a much more constructivist approach to teaching. I was already developing this in Math, but wasn’t really aware that I was doing so. If you scroll down on the first page of my SciencAlive wiki, you can see that I based the project on students’ ability to demonstrate higher order thinking.
I have very recently been thinking that the *old* Blooms Taxonomy is better, with ‘Create’ being the ‘task’ or ‘demonstration’ of learning, but keeping Synthesis and Evaluation as the ’skills’.
“For the past five years, the national conversation on education has focused on reading scores, math tests and closing the “achievement gap” between social classes. This is not a story about that conversation. This is a story about the big public conversation the nation is not having about education, the one that will ultimately determine not merely whether some fraction of our children get “left behind” but also whether an entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can’t think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad or speak a language other than English.”
“I wonder how many natural mathematicians, engineers, artists, composers, story tellers and innovators we are wasting, when we measure our schools almost exclusively on their ability to produce good test takers.
How many natural born leaders are we squandering as we teach them to listen, watch, follow direction, regurgitate facts, to sit down and shut up. How many leaders are we losing when we teach them to be taught — in stead of teaching them to teach.
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.
“Truthfully what happens is that, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waste up. And then we focus on their heads, and slightly to one side…”
“My contention is that all kids have tremendous talents and we squander them, pretty ruthlessly.”
Here it is from a student who will be a lifelong learner, dare I say… despite her schooling. She is the one that sent me the time article above, which got me thinking about compiling this post.
“To the adult readers out there: this is how public education is contributing to your child’s success. We list the qualities we have in one column, the qualities we don’t in another, and write about how the qualities we have will make us nice, successful white collar workers someday, coupled with a post-secondary education and a Graduation Portfolio with bureacratically-documented evidence (signed in triplicate) of us kissing the toes of their shiny black shoes.
Of course, like every student who hopes of one day becoming a successful, white collar worker, the answer I intend to put down is a lot less sarcastic and a lot more Ministry-friendly. There is satisfaction in lashing out at public education on a blog, and there is self-preservation in doing exactly what they tell you on the work you hand in. I have a hunch the Ministry won’t like it, but I still wonder, as I hope others will: “Why?”
“…technology adoption… It’s typically a four-step process:
Dabbling.
Doing old things in old ways.
Doing old things in new ways.
Doing new things in new ways.
…Some people will no doubt worry that, with all this experimentation, our children’s education will be hurt. “When will we have time for the curriculum,” they will ask, “and for all the standardized testing being mandated?” If we really offered our children some great future-oriented content (such as, for example, that they could learn about nanotechnology, bioethics, genetic medicine, and neuroscience in neat interactive ways from real experts), and they could develop their skills in programming, knowledge filtering, using their connectivity, and maximizing their hardware, and that they could do so with cutting-edge, powerful, miniaturized, customizable, and one-to-one technology, I bet they would complete the “standard” curriculum in half the time it now takes, with high test scores all around. To get everyone to the good stuff, the faster kids would work with and pull up the ones who were behind.
In other words, if we truly offer our kids an Edutopia worth having, I believe our students will work as hard as they can to get there.
So, let’s not just adopt technology into our schools. Let’s adapt it, push it, pull it, iterate with it, experiment with it, test it, and redo it, until we reach the point where we and our kids truly feel we’ve done our very best. Then, let’s push it and pull it some more. And let’s do it quickly, so the twenty-second century doesn’t catch us by surprise with too much of our work undone.
A big effort? Absolutely. But our kids deserve no less.”
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Animal School- by R.Z. Greenwald… Curriculum: Running, Flying, Climbing, and Swimming
(Click this button in the link provided to view this movie/slideshow)
Schools do not make accommodations for individual talents and learning styles. A slide show of a story I read a long time ago… still priceless!
“It is perhaps ironic that within our culture we insist that we place such value on creativity and then blatantly try to steal it away from children in the contexts of their educational experiences and their upbringing. As a culture we need to finally decide what we really want for our children and then carefully design and monitor experiences which provide those things we value.”
This has links to 3 versions of The Little Boy by Helen Buckley.
Where do we go from here? We can keep looking at Kathy Sierra for the answer!
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I started this blog with a post titled, The purpose of a system is what it does, and I started this post with a ‘Time’ (or perhaps ‘Timeless’) article that states in the second paragraph,
“American schools aren’t exactly frozen in time, but considering the pace of change in other areas of life, our public schools tend to feel like throwbacks. Kids spend much of the day as their great-grandparents once did: sitting in rows, listening to teachers lecture, scribbling notes by hand, reading from textbooks that are out of date by the time they are printed. A yawning chasm (with an emphasis on yawning) separates the world inside the schoolhouse from the world outside.”
Incremental changes will not take us where we need to be. Standardized testing, outdated curriculum and unwired classrooms won’t get us there. Teachers using a white Smart Board to simply replace the green chalk board, which replaced the blackboard, won’t get us there.
What profound change is needed? I don’t think one teacher at a time can do it. What is going to get us over the Big Frickin’ Wall?
Note my “Articulate Thinkers” post, Jan. 29/07, based on an e-mail ‘conversation’ I had almost three years ago…
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Dec. 18. It has been a while since I looked at Christopher D. Sessums’ Weblog. He just added me to his friends list here on eduspaces and I visited his blog again. I found his post with this apple commercial… which pays tribute to the misfits/the crazies/ the ‘Round Pegs in the Square Holes’.
It reminded me of the main reason I wrote this post, which I alluded to, but didn’t really mention. 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. [I think that the technology is now available to make this easier!]
And I’m demoralized, as I’m now having to tell kids, “A paragraph is an idea – unless your teacher tells you it’s five to seven sentences, and then that’s what it is.”
Jan. 16th. I found this in the inaugural post of madamespider, yet another example of a student’s frustration…
“Let me just say this: I hate school with a passion. You’ll never find someone who loves education more than I do, don’t get me wrong, but as far as I’m concerned, school is not education. I believe one should learn because they want to and understand the value of knowledge, not have it shoved down their throats by the school board or government or whoever.”
…and here again, in reaction to this post, is madamespider,
“Looking back on the talks and ’specialists’ they tried to send me to within the school, I now realize that they were treating me as if I had a behavior problem or learning disability. Like I needed their support to do better. That’s not what I needed. I needed something to make it matter to me. That’s what I still need.”
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Feb. 3rd, 07 Here is a quote from Bruce Springsteen,
“I wasn’t quite suited for the educational system. One problem with the way the educational system is set up is that it only recognizes a certain type of intelligence, and it’s incredibly restrictive — very, very restrictive. There’s so many types of intelligence, and people who would be at their best outside of that structure [get lost]. Most of the schools, they’re aiming to build you up and get you into the machine.”
I found this on ‘The Genius in All of Us‘ blog by David Shenk… this is an interesting blog to explore further!
Originally posted: December 10th, 2006
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
Here are a couple of the comments from the original post:
I really appreciate the feedback, and I’ve responded to all this on my blog. It’s rather lengthy, but it’s basically my perspective on the whole matter of my schooling. Hopefully it will yield something worth thinking about, though it’s rather disorganized. I’ll certainly revisit the subject, I’ve got a lot to say =)
Great work Dave. It’s going to take me a week to get through all these links! Maybe you could wiki this for those of us who only have snippets of time to look at things. Awesome dude (quote from a 15 year old as we watched a student video creation. Thought that line was dead!)
This post was very instrumental to my thinking and it was inspired by a former student, Kris. Later, I helped inspire one of her posts and it got a little bit of attention: How to Prevent Another Leonardo da Vinci was a finalist in the 2007 Edublog Awards in the Most Influential category. Now I am helping her by hosting her blog, and she is helping me with some tech support… the teacher/student lines are blurred. It is no longer about established roles, but rather it is about learners helping each other… hubs in a learning network.
Many times I thought I would create a sequel to this post, or take Kelly’s advice and start a wiki. However now it seems so obviously pessimistic to do so. This post says it all… I don’t need to wallow in yet more examples of how schools don’t fit students. As I said above, “it is about creating an environment where every child can thrive.” For that to happen we need differentiated instruction, we need a flexible curriculum, and we need teachers that are the same life-long learners we hope our students become.
Two Wolves Which wolf will you feed? A Remembrance Day Post
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Warning! We filter websites at school. Filters filter learning!
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My blog is my PhD I have given myself a Blogtorate of Philosophy.
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Bubble Wrap What we are doing is creating a facade of security, nothing more than an illusion of bubble wrap.
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Who are the People in Your Neighbourhood? My (digital) neighbourhood spans the globe.
In his recent post, “
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Background
David Truss on Friday, 14 September 2007, 21:46 CEST