John Faig's Blog

Stereotyping

2011-09-11T11:14:00.003-04:00

I read a very powerful book this summer titled Whistling Vivaldi bu Claude Steele. It provided a detailed explanation of stereotyping from causes to preventive measures. My notes can be found here. I also made a summary video for a grad class.

Thoughts about Creativity

2011-07-24T13:40:00.005-04:00

I confess that I am more of a left-brain person and creativity is difficult for me. Nonetheless, I am continually looking to expand my creative pallet to improve my teaching and lesson plans. I stumbled upon two resources recently. The first is a video called Everything is a Remix part 3, which chronicles some of the major inventions and breath troughs. It shows that creativity and "unique" ideas can be incremental improvements upon existing ideas. I found the video interesting because it support the notion of "mashups", which is where you take digital content that already exists and re-purpose it with your own creativity. It creates an important pedagogical question - how should we teach creativity? Should it be based on traditional "creativity", which is to create something from scratch - or - should it be new "creativity", which is based on improving something that already exists? In case, you don't want to wrestle with this idea, below are 33 Ways to Stay Creative.

References
[1] "list" from 33 Ways to Stay Creative
[2] "thumbnail image from http://sportscreativity.com I didn't have enough creativity to create my own small image for the blog :-(

A Time for Telling

2011-04-21T11:12:00.000-04:00

I began my second-career as a teacher using a "traditional" teaching style. This was the way I learned and I did not have formal training in education. My teaching style has evolved to become more constructivist. My masters courses have provided the favorable research and I have seen it work well in practice. Doing is more powerful than hearing and seeing. Teaching using constructivism is not easy. It requires lots of forethought about the learning goal for each lesson and the many paths students could take to reach it. I have become better at providing the different degrees of scaffolding necessary. This varies by class, grade, and concept. I am also getting better at creating real-world problems to drive discovery. Once in a while, I found myself lecturing and felt guilty. I stumbled upon a white paper that helped sooth my sole.

A Time for Telling[1] examines when lecturing is worthwhile and when it is most successful. Constructivist teaching gives the students substantial control of their learning, whereas, traditional teaching is controlled more by the teacher. In constructivist teaching, the teacher still plays an important role of guiding discovery through scaffolded inquiry. Lectures and speeches are meaningful when they "map into the knowledge of problem situations." Think of a coach that gives a meaningful speech at halftime. A successful speech will be motivational and tie into the team's strategy and game plan. "When telling occurs without readiness, the primary recourse for students is to treat the new information as ends to be memorized rather than tools to help them perceive and think."

A less effective speech will ignore prior knowledge and contrasting cases. No amount of additional "telling" will improve the comprehension. In fact, novices who lack proper background can actually think they understand the concept, when they missed important distinctions. An example would be the different levels of details understood by a novice (lay person) and an expert reading an article about a baseball game. "Contrasting cases help people notice specific features and dimensions that make the cases distinct (Bransford & Schwartz, in press)."

The research had students analyze contrasting cases and then were tested one week later on the hypothetical outcome of an experiment they did not actually conduct. The contrasting cases were compared against more traditional studying techniques (e.g., summarizing, re-reading, etc.). "Generating the distinctions between contrasting cases and then reading a text or hearing a lecture led to more accurate predictions than the control treatment of (a) reading about the distinctions between cases and hearing a lecture, (b) summarizing a relevant text and hearing a lecture, and (c) analyzing the contrasting cases twice without hearing a lecture. Interestingly, the benefits of analyzing the cases extended to concepts that students did not actually discover in their analyses."

So, lecturing can be an effective teaching technique, but only when it extends students' prior knowledge. If students lack prior knowledge on a subject (e.g., they are novices), then the lecture will not make deep connections. Students can develop prior knowledge by analyzing contrasting cases and synthesizing similarities and differences (e.g., discriminants). Teachers can "give" students the prior knowledge by pointing out important features of the cases, but this is less effective than when students discover them on their own. "It is relatively easy to tell a distinction to someone, if that person shares the same set of experiences". This discovery process does not have to be a full-blown activity. Rather, it could just be a brief collaborative activity for a few minutes before a lecture. An important detail of these activities is that they differ from projects. Projects often focus on the final project. Discovery activities to build prior knowledge emphasize the process and often don't have a final project. The discovery process should be guided. For example, before introducing a math units on solving distance/rate/time problems, provide students with several different models that can be used to solve this type of problems.

"Although contrasting cases are effective at scaffolding the development of differentiated knowledge, there is a limit to what we can reasonably expect people to discover." In practice, the discovery process takes more time than lecturing. I like to use scaffolded discovery for concepts that are complex or not intuitive.

References
[1] Schwartz, D.L., Bransford, J. D., A Time for Telling, Cognition and Instruction, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998
[2] Legerstee, Maria, Infants Sense of People, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2005
[3] image from link

Reverse Teaching

2011-02-10T13:10:00.012-05:00

I have given the idea of reverse teaching since returning from Educon and speaking with other teachers. If you have never gone to Educon, I highly recommend it. They have a great pedagogical model that uses technology and is based on core values of inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation and reflection. These skills are woven throughout all subjects in grades 9-12 and are the areas assessed. The conference is mostly an informal un-conference with relevant conversations and great networking opportunities. I love the fact that they open their school to visits on the Friday before the conference. Talk about transparency and trust in your teachers and students. End of Educon commercial....

Reverse Teaching
Reverse teaching stands "traditional" teaching on its head. Students learn new content at home (as homework) and class time is used for working on problems. The teaching is done primarily by video. Fortunately, there is lots of high quality video already available (at least in math). It would also not be very hard to convert a PowerPoint/Keynote presentation into a video or record your computer session using Jing.

I believe that teaching live and watching a video a very similar in a "traditional" classroom (although less true in a project-based classroom). Well done videos are more convenient for students because they can pause and rewind them. In addition, teachers could review their videos and improve them as needed. Over time, the videos should become more organized and succinct. If you are worried that students might not be watching it, you can have them answer questions (in class or online) or spot keywords placed in the video.

My vision of a reverse classroom includes discussion, problem-based activities with a convenient backchannel. A Backchannel is a communications platform for students to post comments and ask questions. The backchannel can be for the whole class or groups of students. The students could be discussing the same essential question or different sides of it. The backchannel provides a powerful outlet for students who are shy and do not regularly contrinute in class. It also helps students who are not prepared or lack understanding as they can pick up on the gist from the discussion. The key element is to ask students questions that make them use their critical thnking skills that leverage the classroom discussion. Students should learn to value contributions by their peers.

Reverse instruction also paves the way for more project-based learning. My experience is that students will only listen to a few minutes of instruction. At the same time, printed instructions usually cause a flood of thoughtless questions. Watching the project instructions at home will help prepare them for the project. The video could also include teaser-type hints about the nature of the project without providing too much information. The teaser could also help prime students for the project by discovering or creating background knowledge.

A reverse classroom also provides a convenient way to correct homework. Teachers are often pressed to spend class time correcting homework because it squeezes out instruction time. Teachers need a certain amount of class time for instruction in order to move the class. Since a bulk of the instrcution is moved outside of normal class time, there is less pressure to skip or minimize homework corrections.

Reverse teaching has interesting potential for more flexible classes. I have thought about it for my technology classes. I could offer several curriculum in the same physical class. For example, students could work on different projects, such as spreadsheets, animation, programming, video editing, etc. It would only work with video instruction at night, so I could help students in class.

References
Image

Improving Education

2010-10-17T07:34:00.008-04:00

Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby) organized a mass posting on education reform. He setup a Wallwisher and asked people to publish a blog post about reform on Sunday October, 17th. In my grad studies, I have taken several courses on educational reform. I don't have enough time to crystallize my thoughts, but I will contribute thoughts I collected from others. If you want to contribute, here is the Google Docs (link)

- when students raise their hands, teach them to be patient and not beg to have their question answered (@johnfaig)
- teach students to take ownership for checking their own work and not rely 100% on the teacher (@johnfaig)
- Listen to the children, they know what works and what doesn't. (@andyhampton)
- Connect and network online for lifelong learning (@michelledodd)
- Improving my teaching through reflective practice improves the education of my students. (@Sarahhanawald)
- get teachers excited about the possibilities that exist with real lesson planning. give them the time & freedom to play around with it. (@samjshah)
- I have ideas -- give me the planning time and technological resources to make those ideas real in my classroom. Make school about learning. (@welikesnow)
- Way more subgroups where students work on way more projects (@onealchris)
- Finance educators to help prepare students for a world that exists. (@teachntweet)
- Engage students, foster knowledge construction, promote self-efficacy and get rid of grades. (@swils00)
- Give novice teachers as much support as we give them responsiblity! (@AppreciationNation)
- Inspiring teachers to inspire children needs time and talk (@icklekid)
- http://bigtweet.com/c/b/twitter/willrich45/YtS1z (@ewellburn)
- above link is Judy Willis article w 10 ideas (@ewellburn)
- Flex schedule and groupings so students who want to learn can be more intensive (@gtsstl)
- Roll out major initiatives to a subset of faculty, develop PD materials and let majority of teachers learn from early adopters (@johnfaig)
- implement theme-based and project-based curriculum (@johnfaig)
- offer benchmarks at the beginning of each unit to identify students who already know the material - they can work on a project instead of being bored (@johnfaig)
- provide faculty examples of great technology integration ideas or work with faculty to develop their own ideas (@johnfaig)
- longer periods (@johnfaig)
- Enable students to explore their curiosities and interests with supportive learning environment. (@kaferico)
- process and product are of equal importance (@jeffmason)
- throw away textbooks - they teach students to focus on units and chapters with no responsibility for the material in the future (@johnfaig)
- create a Sims-like teaching "game" for new teachers to better understand pedagogy and individual learning styles (@johnfaig)
- Find most economical, efficient way to teach and make it standard while being open to improvements...no textbooks (@Jwrussell)
- Implement an online gradebook to improve communication and eliminate the crush of writing interim reports (@johnfaig)
- Classes should be thematic with at least one "Big Idea" and related skills to be learned (@johnfaig)
- hands-on, minds-on learning (@drwetzel)
- get rid of worksheets, kids refer to them as busy work (@drwetzel)
- problem-based teaching and learning (@drwetzel)
- challenge students to think and apply what they have learned (@drwetzel)
- get rid of rote memorization of facts and teach for understanding (@drwetzel)
- make sp.ed certification something you do AFTER you have taught gen ed 5 yrs (@ssocha)
- Teachers - strive to design learning experiences that provoke student reflection (@edteck)
- All decisions should be based on what is best for students. (@dianadell)
- Do away with the current power structures in schools. Too many try to please the higher-ups rather than doing what they know is best. (@dianadell)
- Foster student engagement in the learning process. (@dianadell)
- Implement multi-age, continuous progress, non-graded classrooms and schools in K-12 education. Eliminate departments while we're at it. (@mjmontagne)
- pose authentic problem-solving scenarios. Encourage, encourage, encourage. (@bhallowes)
- invest in providing special education, our children are being left behind (@nemitzc)
- Take turns with students in offering artifacts: you offer one definition, help them make and share one; you offer a theorem, help them build a conjecture, etc. (@MariaDroujkova)
- Care about the whole student and create constant feedback loop to help them grow. (@midquel)
- More time outside! (@suevanhattum)
- cook together, plant gardens together, sing, dance, climb trees (@suevanhattum)
- kids decide what they'll study, kids learn how to work our their conflicts, kids are in charge (@suevanhattum)
- it probably needs a new name, 'school' has too much baggage ('teacher' too). maybe children's center, and mentors? (@suevanhattum)
- teachers have more time to learn new things, they do lesson study (like in Japan) (@suevanhattum)
- Problem-based learning (@emiller)
- Parents/Community/Culture valuing education and teaching children to do everything in excellence (@emiller)
- Focus on the learning. (@caryharrod)
- Encourage and demand teachers learn, grow and explore on a regular, systemic basis. (@sguditus)
- Time needed for all! (@sguditus)
- Get rid of 'social promotion' - keep students in the same class for more than a year if they need it, but give them lots of extra support (@ProfBravus)
- Re-professionalise the profession: put a lot less energy into 'accountability' and making teachers prove to others what they're doing, so that energy can go into the teaching (@ProfBravus)
- Assume good intentions of teachers, students and parents, even in the face of uncertainty (@pepepacha)
- nutritious food and plenty of recess time (@pepepacha)
- Provide ongoing mentoring for teachers who are early in their careers. (@klbz)
- Convince teachers that sharing isn't just for kindergarten students - it's a good thing for grownups too (@Chantellabella)
- If we want our students to be life long learners, We must be life long learners (@debot)
- use a UbD-like course design and focus on "big ideas" first to design curriculum around (@johnfaig)
- Strive to make yourself useless. (@paulbogush)
- Ongoing collaborative and reflective Professional Development; stop one shot and done "programs". (@mackrellr)
- Use the power of social media to encourage exploratory dialog. (@davideisert)
- give each student a laptop or netbook (@doug_holton)
- when planning constantly ask yourself "Why do my students need to know this? How will this help them understand their world?" (UBD once again!) (@hcarver)
- Ask self, "why are we doing this, and is this the best way?" (@bluka)
- Let teacher leaders make decisions, not policy makers or polititions. Esp. true regards to assessment. (@hrmason)
- Treat teachers as professionals, not task doers. Teachers act as professionals no task doers. (@hrmason)
- If you can't do the job better with technology then don't use technology. Although I'm a tech fanatic, I still believe tech isn't always the answer. (@nparson)
- education should be more about exploration than book learning (@vishalsodani)
- focus more on engaging, open-ended questions than quick-fix answers (@nehrmann (HS math))
- do not choose boring (students AND teachers) and refuse to let the joy be sucked out of the classroom. (@dlaufenberg)
- encourage the risk taking teachers who are willing to pour their lives into their work (@montgorp)
- Use whatever tools available to involve the community - school, local, global... (@Tonitones)
- Allow teachers to get a special ed degree only after they have taught five years in the classroom (@scsocha)
- Most teachers can spot good teaching. Have schools take responsibility for the teachers they hire. (@johnfaig)
- Critical Thinking, collaboration, and conversation are the three most important things a teacher can teach. (@fisher1000)
- Collaboration and Conversation are the two most important things teachers can engage in with each other. (@fisher1000)
- Keep the teaching and learning, it is what's in between that needs scrapping. (@Deangroom)
- Create a teaching index where participation and collaboration impacts pay (admin and teachers) (@Deangroom)
- Fund home school and go to school on the same basis. (@Deangroom)
- Behind standardized tests, technology, data, questions, and ideas there is a child who wants to learn and be nurtured. (@TeachTechie)
- Insist on professional autonomy and then insist that students take responsibility for (and understand) their own learning style. (@LisaRead)
- Change schools into community learning centers open 24/7 where learners of all ages take responsibility for what and how they learn to meet their learning goals. (@bbray)
- Students design individual learning plans and post evidence on their ePortfolio demonstrating mastery of skills or acquiring knowledge with the support of their advisor or eCoach. (@bbray)
- Create a professional development lab where teachers work in small, cross-age, cross-curriculum groups and map the curriculum to design thematic project-based learning activities. (@bbray)
- Provide enough time for ongoing sustainable professional development that includes individualized coaching. (@bbray)
- pay teachers more money. (@hotei)
- train teachers for at least 3 years & be substantially more selective about who gets into education programs. (@hotei)
- empower professional learning communities to implement & experiment following authentic, sober analysis of data. (@hotei)
- Trust your students. (@stevekatz)
- give students more responsibility - not less (especially with technology) (@johnfaig)
- challenge students - attention starts with meaningful and deep tasks (@johnfaig)

References:
image from Edchoices.org (link)

Concept Map Project

2010-10-07T08:44:00.007-04:00

I am working on my masters thesis at Teachers College and chose to understand concept mapping more through research and actual classroom usage. The research will trace the history of concept mapping and how it can be used to support active learning or what Jonassen calls a Mindtool (link). I am convinced of the promise and there is considerable research that discusses the benefits - particularly for visualization and association by the brain. At the same time, there has been little written on practical experiences in the classroom.

Concept Map vs Note-taking
The promise of concept maps is that they are better than traditional note-taking. Concept map creation is non-linear and more malleable than text outlines. Students building concept maps in conjunction with a lesson are actively digesting the information and making sense of it in their own way. Contrast this with a class of students all creating essentially the same outline of information. There is little cognitive discourse as the notes are created. This means that students preparing for an assessment must heavily review them. Concept mapping creates more active learning during in the class, while standard notes require more processing after the class. A new generation of concept mapping tools is becoming available that support simultaneous use by different users. These collaborative concept maps hold even more promise.

Study Design
I am going to model concept map building for an 8th grade U.S. History class. The primary teacher will conduct his class normally and I will be building and reconfiguring the map in conjunction with what I see and hear. After a few days, I will ask for a few volunteers to try the concept mapping. I will create a backchannel (e.g., Edmodo, Etherpad, Google Docs, etc) for students to discuss design and content questions, as well as, ask me questions. At the end of a unit, I will review the different concept maps and ask the students about their experiences. I am interested in how the maps compare with one another. I am also interested in how the maps change from class to class.

Design Questions
I have many questions about the actual study that need to be addressed prior to the study:

what is an appropriate level of scaffolding to provide? is a sandbox of terms enough?
should images and relevant weblinks be provided or should students obtain them?
do different level students create different sophistication levels of concept maps?

Future Research
The research will likely be the first of many research projects. In the future, I would like to investigate individual vs collaborative maps and if they are suitable for assessments.

References:
Concept courtesy of Cmap (link)

Classical Education Comments - part 3

2010-09-17T13:28:00.000-04:00

Over the summer, I had a chance to review the 500+ comments that were left for a NY Times articles titled A Classical Education: Back to the Future. The article was much less interesting than the comments. This is the third part of a three-part blog post (part1, part2) with some of the more pithy comments:

There does need to be a tightening of standards throughout the nation. There certainly has been a dumbing down in education since my student days. States are simply going to have to yield some sovereignty on this issue and work together to develop national competency standards for at least the three "r's". A national citizenship standard would also be nice; just because you're born here doesn't mean that you automatically know how the U.S. is governed. How things are taught may be up for grabs, but there has to be a base level of competency in reading, writing, and arithmetic if we want to retain our position in the world today. [comment #315]
So much more could be done to make students more well rounded and self-reliant citizens. Basic mechanics, carpentry, cooking, metal working, mechanical drawing, music and art appreciation skills would surely be conduits to fulfilling careers for many. No one is mentioning the quaint notion of imparting a sense of duty to one's nation or one's fellow-man [Comment #329]
Trying to force a classical education down the throats of students who simply have no desire to learn is a major waste of time and resources. A middle ground must be found so that those students who value this sort of education are able to easily obtain it, but those who simply want to master a vocation are not forced to waste so many hours of their time. I would venture to say that one of the causes of the decline in classical education is the attempt to ensure that everyone receives a very basic, broad liberal education. We are sacrificing depth for breadth. [comment #333]
What Mr. Fish and the three educational expert authors he mentions are describing as the best education already exists today in one of the oldest methods of formal education. Waldorf schools across the country offer a classical education, without technology or formal testing until high school. Waldorf education creates open and clear critical thinkers, who possess a breadth of knowledge of the history of most of the world's major civilizations and key figures, with a strong background in mathematics and languages, and great scientific abilities. Waldorf students learn also through oral storytelling and by using their hands and bodies to reinforce what their brains are learning, so they become good listeners and doers as well. Careful attention to each child's developmental stage is given and subject matter is introduced and stress is reduced and a firm, lifelong enthusiasm and vigor for learning is established. Most of all, Waldorf education produces global citizens, whose hearts and souls have been strongly honored and developed through the arts, and who are passionate about using their individual gifts to improve and enhance human civilization and our earth. [Comment #336]
A classical education that has no measurable justification of its effects should not be used. Public Education for lifetime happiness is a luxury that we no longer have, instead we must educate for a competitive population. The rest of the world knows this and if the US doesn't teach math and science and communication we will only have to teach one subject: Chinese, so that we can understand our new masters [comment #353]
Americans interested in educational quality should study the International Baccalaureate Program where students are tested on how well they can express what they know. In the English component both English and world literature are studied. Individual student compositions on chosen topics are read by teams of teachers. Only human beings, no machines, are involved in the process [comment #356]
When apprenticeship fell out of schools and the school system began coddling every child as if he or she was a special little snowflake, we got into this mess. It is going to take a special kind of education administrator to get us out of this mess: one who is not afraid to hire mostly male teachers who are ready to knock students down a peg or two. The ones who do not get back up: put them to work. The ones who do get back up: hand them a notebook and a pencil and let the learning begin [comment #364]
Whatever the curriculum, teachers need to use their creativity and imagination to inspire learning. it is impossible to inspire students with learning; therefore, it is possible to inspire other students. My philosophy was, if I was bored, so were the students [comment #377]
I was very surprised when you mentioned that your high school was "made up of the children of immigrants or first generation Americans". The lofty, elitist education you received sounds more like that of a NYC or Washington DC private school, comprise of students whose parents' connections (and ability to find their child a job) afford them the luxury to indulge in the finer, more sophisticated areas of education. Intellectualism and practicality will always clash when it comes to education. While you may not have fallen in this category, the "classical" education you experienced is a luxury of those born with the silver spoon in their mouth. The rest of us "common folk, who actually have to work for success, can only hope that we have an education that not only prepares us for the job market, but is also something we love. [comment #378]
Is our society harmed, and its future prospects impaired by our well intended policies of equalizing student access to school at the cost of severely reducing the educational attainments of our best and brightest? I believe it is. But current political attitudes and ideological rigidity make it impossible to change. I hope you will write a column addressing the ways in which all students capable of the curriculum you described are able to access it, while those of lesser capabilities are given an education consistent with their relative capabilities without being labeled as discriminatory. [comment #379]
The classics teach us much about how democracies rise and fall, how leaders use language to persuade, and how religion affects popular vote. Human nature and the nature of politics hasn't changed much; only the communications media. That no one teaches rhetoric in high school mystifies me. What better tool to create good citizens than to train young people on how to parse language and separate facts from rhetoric? From the more technical side, I would add elementary probability & statistics to a new trivium/quadrivium. There was no genuine understanding of this discipline in the ancient or even medieval times. Part of the machinery of modern misinterpretation is grounded in false use of statistics. In particular, presenting average (means) often paints a distorted picture. [comment #388]
Isn't it ironic - in this nation full of people who describe themselves as independent, almost no on even considers it possible to educate yourself or your children. The dependence on the public school system is staggering. And when the public school system doesn't meet everyone's expectations, the American people spend all sorts of time and energy complaining and objecting, but almost no time at all educating their own sons and daughters. I am not advocating full time home schooling (which is great for the few people with the time, resources, education and patience to spend every day as their own children's primary educator). What I am advocating is that every parent should take a couple of hours a week (which we all have) to teach their children. This could be something that the school system has ignored or not spent enough time, something the child is struggling with at school, or best yet, something the child is generally interested in. This helps create a real interest in learning, is a great supplement to public education and inevitably teaches the parents a few things at the same time. [comment #402]
I've benefited from an intense classical education but view with Faustian despair the avalanche of new science that is overwhelming us, such that we have to spend most of our lives studying a narrow sliver of a discipline simply to become competent in it. And it's obsolescent even as we try to master it. That's our human condition in the technological world. [comment #405]
The solution to avoid teaching to the test is quite simple, and is by far the most effective way of testing content. Take the student teaching model and extend it to all teachers. Every teacher should have to submit unit and lesson plans for evaluation by a curriculum and instruction expert in their field (or, at minimum, a department head who's been relieved of most teaching duties and can focus on teacher performance). They money currently put towards testing could be put to hiring three or four of these experts per district. Anyone who has taught knows that preparation is 90% of the work, and also knows that you prepare best when you know that your work is going to be checked. A big part of the testing system impetus is that we want an easy solution to a complex problem. There is no real way of ensuring that teachers really teach their classes other than by creating a prolonged discussion between the teacher and a teaching specialist. A teacher-mentor relationship will not only improve results, but will improve teacher quality as well. [comment #419]
I was lucky to b the beneficiary of such an education. Although my non-specific degree sometimes makes it harder for me to find a job, it has never made it harder for me to keep a job. [comment #426]
A classical education demands a lot from the student and not everyone is up to it. But for those who can meet its challenges, we would do well to keep providing it. Classically educated people are are the ones best equipped to foresee the worst excesses of our modern world and warn us about them. And to see the greatest opportunities and let us know why we should seize them. Their education allows them to think widely and critically, combining the lessons of history (often best revealed in literature) with the new tools made possible by modern science and engineering. We need these people. And we need to listen to them. In any case, I will make sure my child get as much of this sort of education as he can handle. His future (and ours) depends on it. [comment #433]
Raise your hand if you know who your mayor and local representative is. How about your State representatives? How are State and local integrated? Do you know what the Ways and Means committee does? Why are there committees at all? All that is civics. Civics is continual involvement in the political process, not a detached understanding of "checks and balances" only to be utilized at the ballot box if at all. In short, if we fix our education system to produce citizens instead of engaging in a lengthy crash course in how to be a lfoating cog in a consumer capitalist machine, then concerns about American economic and scientific global competitiveness will also be fixed in the process [comment #436]

Classical Education Comments - part 2

2010-08-05T09:39:00.000-04:00

Over the summer, I had a chance to review the 500+ comments that were left for a NY Times articles titled A Classical Education: Back to the Future. The article was much less interesting than the comments. This is the second part of a three-part blog post (part1, part3) with some of the more pithy comments:

The humanities attempt to educate the whole person, to create a Mensch, not just a cog in the big stupid machine we call an economy. Mere utilitarian criteria in education lead to an intellectually and morally impoverished existence - the recent efflorescence of greed, corruption and bankruptcy of moral values is a good example. What is the value of art, literature, music, or for that matter, friendship? They are the crown jewels of a human life, that's all. [comment #155]
Education cannot prepare anyone for all the complex, specific issues they will encounter throughout life. But a good education can give people the analytical tools and historical precedents they need to navigate through an increasingly dynamic and complex world. A classical education just happens to provide a known, proven vehicle to those necessary life skills. There is a reason why most of the people who run this country had one, and why the wealthy push their children to obtain one. [comment #160]
Being Classically educated makes you critical, inquisitive, thoughtful and open-minded. It's hard to reach a final conclusion on the truly complex debates ongoing in the world if you're well-educated enough to apprehend these issues in a truly multi-dimensional way. American public life is ill-suited to someone standing up and saying, "I may not be correct, but here's what I think right now. I'm not fully committed to my conclusions because this is a big idea and the ethics attaching to it are similarly complex." [comment #161]
Some people in education have seen this shift as an opportunity to spend more time teaching thought processes and reasoning. The problem is that in order to teach reasoning, you need facts to reason about. If students have not memorized enough facts, they will have empty minds, and will be unable to learn understanding. [comment #165]
We don't use education to teach in this country. We don't expect or want our children to ask questions. If they do, they may ask some very uncomfortable questions. One of the reasons we don't have national standards is because we can't agree on what we want our children to learn. Teachers are expected to teach all of these children. They are not allowed to discipline children since it might damage their self esteem. They are afraid to be alone with their pupils in case of an accusation such as sexual abuse. Teachers are not allowed to decide the best way of teaching a class or pupil. The public thinks that teachers have a cushy job and doesn't want to pay them what they are worth. Children sense this sort of disrespect and may feel that they don't have to learn from someone in a professions that others despise. If we want to educate citizens we have to start respecting those who do the educating. If we want average students to succeed we need to expect more. Average should not be a euphemism for failure. [comment #167]
Even here, a tiny liberal arts college supposedly renowned for it, there doesn't tend to be much intellectual adventurousness. majors stick with fellow majors, tend to blow off required courses as a pain to slog through. As cynical as this sounds, I've seen very few people take classes without some ulterior motive that generally has nothing to do with the noble educational philosophy every college spins a good yarn about. [comment #168]
It's worth noting that the classical curriculum developed and persisted at a time when science was pretty much limited to arithmetic and geometry. Centuries later, I see no reason why science, rather than literature, cannot be used to develop the logical "grammatical" and empirical judgment necessary for citizenship and life guidance. [comment #169]
I live in Massachusetts, where the debate in educational circles is whether to join the new national standards because they are lower than those that Mass. has set for its students. It has been almost 18 years since Mass. passed Education Reform which started its testing program. It is important to note that the testing program was accompanied by a rigorous construction educational standards for each grade. While not a classroom teacher, I have been closely observing the curriculum that my children have been receiving and I have been impressed with what they have been receiving in the public schools in math and English. I was not surprised that when Mass. students took the TIMSS international assessment tests and competed as it's own "country", our 4th graders scored second in math, behind Singapore and Hong Kong, and tied with japan and Taiwan. Our 8th graders scored similarly. [comment #173]
I agree wholeheartedly with Fish's view of a classical education. But I'm not sure he would agree that it's not so much the specific information that of great value, although often useful for further learning, but the intellectual struggle with abstract information processing. It appears that technology has fooled us into thinking we don't need these skills anymore. Unfortunately, with so little respect left for education in the U.S., and so few people in charge who were educated in the style that Fish describes, it's hard to imagine how we'll be able to reverse the trend. [comment #212]
Nothing will improve until teaching becomes a prestige profession: something to which the most intellectually gifted aspire, something studied only in extremely competitive and selective institutions, something that will reward significantly the few who have both the talent and drive to succeed. When teachers are regarded as doctors, or lawyers, or (God forbid) sports heroes or American Idol contestants are regarded, then education - and our students - might have a chance. [comment #238]
I attended and later taught at Classical High. Our present system teaches students to rely on formulas and not the ability to think and reason. [Comment #245]
For the vast majority of people, pop culture is as deep as they intend to go in understanding the modern world. [comment #246]
I also wonder what audience Fish might be addressing. Yes, the testing craze has little to do with authentic education; however, Fish must understand that the first generation children he grew up with bear some but not a major resemblance to many of today's students. Think "Blackboard Jungle" with iPods and cell phones, in classrooms with thirty-five or forty students. Imagine an eleventh grade class, half of whom do not read at a ninth grade level of comprehension. Imagine kids for whom Homer means Homer Simpson. [comment #253]
Perhaps it's the Classical education (I graduated in '68), but it has always struck me that humanity cannot progress intellectually or technologically--and no, those terms are not synonymous--unless the leaders of society have themselves acquired WISDOM. Yet wisdom cannot be gained by exclusively studying business, engineering, or computer science, or even law. Indeed, wisdom comes only by mastering knowledge that would, if disaster struck and humanity were largely wiped out, allow whoever is left to reinvent our civilization. [comment #255]
The truth is that Classical was an intellectual boot camp with some teachers who were tough enough to chew up and spit out drill sergeants. There was a quiz in every class every day. They were graded and handed back, frequently with very critical remarks on them. There was homework in every class every day. During my freshman year, our algebra teacher assigned two hundred problems to be done over Christmas vacation. We were told to spend three hours per night on homework but, in my case at least, that was a vast underestimate. In the English courses, students were required to write one major composition per week. In English and history, students were called on to stand up and answer questions in front of everyone else. There was no place to hide. In my junior and senior years, we had not only to do the regular homework assignments but extra term papers in English and history and an extra project in science. But, I did not learn the ablative absolute. I learned to work. I learned that I had to sit down with a book and pound ideas into my head. I learned that memorization, while it might be painful, was also useful. I learned that there were other people in the world who were smart and tough and I had to work to keep up with them. I learned that grades were not important. I learned that learning how to learn was important. Yet, even with the above complaints, it was a good place to learn. [comment #259]
Why is it that when the finger pointing and blaming begin, there is a tendency to look back on "the classics" and "days of yore" and to assert that if only today's generation were educated in "real classical education"? More importantly, why is it that it is always the older generation who believes what should be or what is better. I am 29, and the Classics bored the be-Jesus out of me. They certainly have their place, but learning for me is more than what the Classics, or whatever the older generations believe them to be, can supposedly offer. Contemporary education can make its mark if given a chance, including the opportunity to let go of what has been and take risks of what education could be for today's generation. [comment #265]
Why is this education question an eternal issue in America? How to educate seems to be FOREVER up in the air, a big unknown, mysterious, unsolvable. How many PhD's in education does it take? We already spend more per pupil than every country in the world, so don't bring up money. Such a weird dilemma that I am finally at a loss for words. [comment #268]
I do agree with the professor's conclusion: tell students where they are going. For me, students' motivation is essential in learning process. Cooperative learning, active learning can improve students results and lower teacher's load. [comment #274]
The sad truth is that it takes an awful lot of intelligence and an awful lot of hard work to teach the liberal arts, and an awful lot of intelligence and an awful lot of hard work to learn the liberal arts. You have "education majors" who are not educated and "students" who cannot and will not study. Oh, there are lots of reasons for each, depending on your political affiliations, but that's the bottom line. And nobody wants to say, "I just don't have it", because then you would have to go out into the tough world and actually find what you DO have, or create it. And that's what the Trivium and Quadrivium are all about: ways to negotiate the world of one's parents in order to create a world of one's own. Difficult, difficult stuff. Easier to suck on an iPod than create a new way to use it. [comment #275]
As recommended by these authors, Waldorf schools keep technology out of the classroom until 8th grade - at which point the students disassemble and reassemble a computer, write their own programs and debug them [comment #276]
I agree that a classical education has value, both to the individual and to society. The decline of the "classics" in education over the past three or four decades has produced citizens lacking in literacy, historical knowledge, the ability to think and reason clearly, and a foundation for morality. No doubt this has paved the way for the mindless consumerism and created opportunities for greedy and amoral entrepreneurs to develop and market destructive hardware, software, and lifestyles to easily-controlled minds. [comment #261]
This talk about "Classical Education" is and always has been code for rolling back history to the time when The West was Great and the rest of the world was inconsequential. What say we come up with a multi-cultural, multi-faith curriculum more befitting the demands of the 21st century! [comment #282]
There is a hidden message in all education and educational systems; you are small and unimportant, knowledge is large, long lasting and it is there for you to attempt, however pitifully, to master. It is easy, then, to bury oneself in the search for knowledge and miss the goal by a million miles. At what point does the student become enabled, or allowed, to rise above the material and seek to draw or assert his/her own conclusions or ideas? Perhaps never. The goal is always to study, always to submit before the presumed body of knowledge that has been assembled. [comment #292]
As a cognitive neuroscientist who started out with 5 years of Latin at the University of British Columbia, I strongly support every effort to introduce young people to the pleasures and challenges that accompany the study of the complex issues initially addressed by our classic predecessors. Only then will contemporary students be able to distinguish the heuristic value of those early attempts to understand the human condition from their great limitations. I caution against teaching that the classics provide the final answer to our search. [comment #298]
My daughter spent the extra year in high school in the international baccalaureate (IB) program. She moaned and groaned at the time, saying that it would be of no help in her desired field of study, graphic design. It was intense, and included a year-long course on the theory of knowledge, and requirements for social work and courses from different subject areas: sciences, languages, social studies, and math. I don't think I ever worked as hard in school or my undergrad and graduate degrees as I saw her work. Was it worth it? A full two years into her undergraduate work, one day my daughter said," I'm sure glad that I did IB. I am way ahead of my friends and classmates. I can think." [comment #300]
Yes, I agree with Mr. Fish. Give the students the basics and they will do well. Also, important to give them support. I teach AP classes but also regular classes of American History and I told them I expect a great deal from them. Many of these students met the challenges. So I think if we expect them to do the work, they will do the work. [comment #302]
But Dr. Fish, you forget, we're not (e.g.) South Korea, where teaching is an honorable profession. here in the United States, we screen out the bottom 15% of teacher hopefuls and take the rest. Being a lawyer, a medical professional, a manager - these are the professionals to aspire to. [comment #304]
Isn't it somewhat ironic to have a system teach that the goal is to make as much money as possible when those within the system (and the system itself) can earn relatively little. [comment #305]
I disagree with most of what was said . First, most of us leave college in need of a job that can pay the rent, help us start and support a family, and pay back our monstrous school loans. The Sunday Jobs section has many jobs for people who know C++, Excel, and Objective-C, but very few for anyone who can explicate Rousseau, Plato and Milton. Professors make a mistake by assuming that the skill set they need for tenure is the same set the rest of us need to make ends meet. Our workaday lives -- 40 to 60 hours a week in jobs like accounting, database management, and customer service -- require us to speak FileMaker and Microsoft, not Hegel and Habermas. [comment #308]
The new flavor of the year for education being proposed here is "classical". Ravitch, who was into fads, now claims to turn against them without owning up to her part in the fadism. What is not understood is that it takes a culture to teach a student, more than a school. Our culture teaches anti-intellectualism, celebrity obsession, what matters is the bottom line, "Jesus" (or other "God" nonsense) and then we're surprised when students don't want to learn. The cultural messages and the economic priorities of this country are the causes of our problems. And by the way, "classical" education was in the past only for an elite; we do better than we did then, for we educate a whole lot of people to a higher level than ever before. Our country has always only educated the elite to a high level. Now we also educate a whole lot of people to a medium level, which in fact is a great advantage. [comment #313]

Classical Education Comments - part 1

2010-07-10T22:38:00.002-04:00

Over the summer, I had a chance to review the 500+ comments that were left for a NY Times articles titled A Classical Education: Back to the Future. The article was interesting, but the comments were even more interesting. The comments had lots of passion with different perspectives. It opened my eyes to the need for teaching a new generation of reading skills to handle the online world. Here is the first part (of three) of the more pithy comments:

In the end, graduation from one's school is only the end of the beginning. If parents, grandparents, and educators can engender a love of learning in a student, learning can be a satisfying and lifelong process. [comment #1]
Sometimes, I think that people forget the value of a good test. If the test is good, teaching to it isn't a bad thing. Short-cuts produce worse results in the long-term, but better results in the short-term. [comment #2]
An important challenge of education is to make the students interested in and curious about a certain area. For example, children need to know how that something is missing or doesn't make sense in their thinking, and they need the motivation to find this missing information and thus develop their knowledge. Much of the repetition and memorization inherent in the classical approach seems to conflict this type of motivation [comment #13]
If the goal for American educators is to create a globally empathetic and cognizant citizens, why Western philosophy? [comment #14]
Opinions on education are necessarily patronizing: my education worked for me, so it must be good. [comment #16]
As a high school English teacher struggling against a tide of electronic distractions, the constant mantra that all education needs is to "fire bad teachers" and student, parental and community apathy, I am profoundly concerned that the train is going to quickly run out of tracks. [comment #26]
Math, for example, is a beautiful, creative, elegant endeavor. The problem is the way in which it is taught at the secondary level, sucks the life out of it. [comment #29]
Developing all of these fancy cultural competencies and intellectual skills does little to serve the students, who will be handicapped in their competition with others in society who do not have these hangups. They have won the competition for wealth by going for the money, at the expense of those who dithered with alternative concerns [comment #30]
As a professor, I found that students reached further when they were asked to work beyond their 'level - this was particularly true in night courses taught for students over the traditional age, and may never had been asked to stretch like that. Several told me they were intimidated at first, but really ended up enjoying the mental workout [comment #33]
School curriculums turned from making us into broadly adaptable human beings into narrow career planners. [comment #37]
We have to live with the fact that commercialism and consumerism are as central to American culture as democracy, and our educational system will continue to prepare most children to function in the society we actually live in, not the one some of use might prefer [comment #38]
I see it again and again - successful children have concerned, involved parents. As a nation, we've embraced the doctrine of anti-intellectualism, and it has changed the way children see teachers. [comment #39]
Initially we worried that the French system might prove "too rigorous" or "too strict". We have watched in astonishment over the course of the year as our child simply and naturally began performing with "more" concentration and enthusiasm for school in general, as a place to learn, as his natural reaction to his new "higher bar". [comment #42]
They have never been taught to think critically, to analyse. They have only been taught a narrow skill-set aimed at current technology, which becomes outdated the instant the next graduating class shows up. When unfamiliar challenges arise, they are helpless [comment #44]
They've spent years learning to make money - and take only a few "boring" classes in the humanities in the process ignoring all the complexities of humans confronting unanswerable questions, ignoring all perspectives other than their own [comment #52]
I am for rigorous education, however, what seems to be missing in this expose is the importance of giving students a sense that the education they get will empower them. [comment #54]
If a player had to to drills for years before he/she was allowed to play the game, he/she would probably hate it and quit. [comment #56]
Soccer moms and little league dads became academic thugs for education. [comment #57]
A literary background teaches you to think about motives, to remember that characters lie or have their own points of view. If there's a phrase that describes our America today, its political autism. Whether it's derivatives trading, medical practice, or the current student testing fetish, we've lost the capacity to switch disciplines, learn new subjects on the fly, consider historical perspectives, and relate them to our own lives. [comment #58]
The curricular shift away from critical thinking, analysis, and writing skills has a profoundly undemocratic element - elite schools continue to teach these skills; schools that serve a broader social range do not [comment #59]
The greatest problem of assimilating a classical education is that it requires patience [comment #61]
My kids have attended public inner city schools and a curriculum which is far more demanding in both content and the number of credits than the one I experiences [comment #63]
We study the humanities not to make us more valuable in the marketplace, but to become better human beings. How sad that becoming better human beings is a luxury too many of us can no longer afford. [comment #65]
Testing seems to be a form of conditioning, training student to "learn just enough." Where is the intrinsic motivation to pursue knowledge and wisdom? [comment #66]
Fundamentally, we as citizens must define clearly the purpose of education. We have allowed education to become the pipeline to employment as a default, rather than seeing it as the development of an enlightened and responsible citizenry. Sadly, we even perform poorly at being pipelines for employment. [comment #95]
Kids, students, and people learn different subjects at different rates. Everyone has a limit to their abilities, but we organize our educational system with the expectation that everyone of the same age will learn at the same rate and that all will go to college. [comment #99]
How strange is it to think that back then, in the middle of a blue-collar community, my high school offered four years of Latin. I took them all. it was also a time when nobody stressed standardized tests; the students were free to choose elective subjects. If I'm not mistaken, 1962-63 was also a banner year for SAT scores. I see three robust enemies of a good education today that were mere nuisances in 1962. Their names are distraction, apathy, and relevance (as it pertains to future economic benefit). [comment #103]
In a society where the CEO rewarded for quarterly performance is the aspirational role model, there seems to be no room at all for an obsolete and irrelevant "classical education." Our current corporate-industrial educational system that turns out robotic drudges trained to take standardized tests reflects the value of our society. [comment #104]
The problem is not at the high school level. It is at the elementary school level. If we want to have a content-based curriculum in high schools, we need to have a skills-based curriculum in elementary school. Elementary schools need to do a better job teaching the basic skills that students will need to use throughout high school. Math, science, reading, and writing curricula must be accelerated. A student entering the 6th grade should be able to write a grammatically correct, intelligent and persuasive paper, even if the topic is "dolls" or "silly bandz." High school must be divided into two parts. The first two years of high school should have required basic courses in math, English language , English literature and history. The next two years should have the same requirements, but students should be allowed to choose their focus. [comment #106]
A classical education does not negate the importance of science or religion. Rather, it provides an exceptional foundation for comprehension and further investigation of both. Without proper understanding of language, it is impossible to discern fallacy. Hence the masses are easily manipulated into believing false messages propagated by government and corporate interests. [comment #108]
My daughters and all their friends simply have no interest in the world around them unless it personally affects them. The idea of learning anything simply to learn it and be a more well-rounded person does not register with them. If we are ever to turn around the decline in this country's education system, we need to somehow stimulate young people to take an interest in knowledge for it's own sake again. No amount of money or additional testing will light any spark in the minds of this country's children. We can force-feed them specific ideas so that they will do better on a test but this is no different than training a dog to perform a trick. The dog will still be a dog and our children will still be wandering around in a fog unable to work their way through the complexities of life. [comment #120]
It's a different world, Mr. Fish. Your two professions -- academia and journalism -- are no longer viable careers for young people. The majority of university instructors are no-benefit adjuncts, and journalism is laying people off right and left. What worked for you won't work for someone who's 20. I wish it did [comment #125]
New Yorkers have taken Regents exams since the 1880s. I've taken several professional exams without review classes. Academic tests are part of life; students should learn those skills as well. [comment #127]
I think that anyone who proposes changes in teaching and learning work in a high school for one academic year to see what teachers and kids are up against. [comment #139]
Parents don't abdicate to the teachers the responsibility for educating your children. Be aware of what is being taught in the classroom and spend a little time reviewing it with your kids. A little less time in front of the TV or computer, interacting with your kids will benefit parent and child, educationally and emotionally. [comment #142]
I'm currently studying Classics and plan to pursue a graduate degree in it. Many of my Classics friends are doing the same. You will not find a more dedicated group of undergrads than in Classics. We know that most people question our choice but we study it because we know it matters. I'm often asked, "What are you going to do with that?" when I tell people my major. My response used to be "I'll be able to say 'Do you want fries with that?' in dead languages." Now I'll say that I'm going to lead a revival in American education. [comment #144]
Critical thinking is important and should be a focus of any education, but I think it is necessary to spend time focusing specifically on mastery of argument and logical fallacies. People are now able to pick and choose from diverse media options that are tailored to specific points of view, As the sources of information become more tailored to a specific set of consumers, they become less objective and less trustworthy. In order for a a person to identify what should be listened to and what should be ignored they must have a clear understanding of what an argument is and what a logical fallacy is. [comment #145]
I believe that the problem also lies with our representatives/states people. What kind of education did they have? I would wager to guess that the majority of them went to private schools, or public schools in more affluent areas that taught a wide variety of subject matter (including arts and the classics). I believe that a lot of them just think/believe that all schools are run like the ones they went to. They do not understand what is going on in the majority of schools in the US. [comment #148]
Studying language is studying thinking. Studying various languages teaches that there are various ways to build thoughts. These different though-architectures show that there are different legitimate outcomes to thinking and that these different outcomes can be compared, providing intellectual depth perception. [comment #149]

>> see part2 and part3 of the comments

Exeter - Part 3

2010-07-02T14:19:00.003-04:00

Carly Ziniuk from The Bishop Strachan School.
Thank you for introducing me to the notion of math trails. Math trails are essentially math-oriented scavenger hunts that combine authentic learning with getting kids out of the classroom. With my newly trained eye for spotting real world math (see part 1), I spent the day taking pictures around my school campus. Below is a link to my first try at a Math Trail.

Go to folder - FileFactory.com

Exeter - Part 2

2010-06-29T18:30:00.007-04:00

The Exeter math conference continued to be exceptional. It is a unique combination of smart, driven people and has the feel of my other favorite conference (Educon).

Carly Ziniuk from The Bishop Strachan School.
We did an activity that compared the relative population by continent between 1994 and 2025. It was a follow-up activity to a tactile project she did with her eighth grade class based on global inequity. The project was well-suited for mathematics because students needed to figure out how to create a stacked bar graph for both years. This involved accurately partitioning the graph into proportional rectangles based on the data. There is decimal arithmetic involved as we needed to know the running total to accurately draw the graph. We worked in pairs and each group member took one of the two years. I am a huge fan of this approach. It uses authentic data and allow students to collaborate without one student doing all of the work. In fact, I would like each student to have their own data. This sets up opportunities for them to compare and contrast their results with peers. Data for each student puts a larger burden on the teacher, but I am confident that a spreadsheet can be created with the individualized answers.

We used Google Earth for several projects. We traced Greg Mortenson's route in Three Cups of Tea, from where he tried to ascend the K2 to where he built his first school. His path has lots of opportunity for mathematical analysis (e.g., rate, climate, etc.). Carly discussed a similar use of Google Earth, where each student tracked a persons' route on the Underground Railroad. I need to do more work with Google Earth and learn how to create realistic 3D buildings using Google SketchUp.

Bishop Strachan School grades it's students on knowledge, application, thinking, and communications. The relative contribution may vary by assignment and the overall subject grades is equally weighted. This is smart. Students are driven by grades and they will adapt their study habits to the system. On a side note, the Chris Lehman's Science Leadership Academy uses a similar set of core values for grading and curriculum design: inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation and reflection. This is very helpful for creating teacher accountability at the assignment level. In addition, these common skills facilitate curriculum mapping and interdisciplinary projects. It is clear from Carly's activities that real-world data can be woven into any math context. Moreover, data can used to raise social issues. Maybe during the course of solving the math problems, they will develop a sense of empathy and start to raise legitimate questions.

Ron Lancaster (see part 1) had more excellent examples of math in the read world. Today's marque problem involved distance and time graphs. We worked on understanding the distance between two people on escalators. One person stars at the top (and goes down) and the other person starts at the bottom (and goes up). The distance between them is a quadratic, which we used Sketchpad to simulate.

In closing, I shared with the class a few links of my Delicious links:

my "best" math links
all of my math links
all of 7000+ links

Exeter Part 1

2010-06-28T20:15:00.004-04:00

I am attending on of the best math conferences. It is hosted by Philips Exeter Academy. It is a conference that combines week-long classes and shorter 75-minute classes. Here are some thoughts from the first few days.

Project-Based Learning (Carmel Schettino)
There is lots of research showing that Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a better teaching technique than traditional pedagogy. It is more complicated that being a "sage on a stage" and takes practice. Moreover, students not used to being pushed will find it uncomfortable. Some of the characteristics of project-based learning:

teachers step back; teachers physically reposition themselves and there is an alternate generation of directions
when they teach, they generally model, rather than how a specific process
it relies on discourse and discovery; there is often physical activity
it is student-directed, which increases ownership; teachers allow, encourage and validate discomfort
teachers need to understand the cognitive apprenticeship model of model, coach, scaffold, and fade
it is very important for teachers need to keep the learning goal in mind; otherwise the students may feel lost and complain that they are not learning (which in turn will generate complaints from parents)
Cindy Hmelo-Silver has done a lot of research on the effectiveness of PBL
Several schools use PBL exclusively - Phillips Exeter Academy and the Illinois Math & Science Academy.
Other resources include: New Tech Foundation, Buck Institute, and Montana's SIMMS initiative.

In practice, teachers using PBL should be aware of the following:

there is always a balancing act between the time spent and letting them explore tangents that may have nothing to do with the learning goal
"revoicing" is a form of repeating information back to students and is an effective scaffolding strategy; it lends credence; causes reflection; validates their authority
"revoicing" can also be effective in explicitly mapping cause in effect from their discourse and questions; it can also encourage construction of visuals ("please show me")
encourage student to use patient problem solving
encourage them to try multiple approaches
the teacher should present compelling questions
scaffolding can be done with images and videos
keep in mind that students must take ownership, which means responsibility

One potential pitfall of PBL is to use it for every aspect of a lesson. Discovery is not necessary in all cases. It is fair to "tell" students:

when introducing conventional terminology
remind students of conclusions they have already reached
rephrase students comments and questions (as in "revoicing")
alert students than their ideas are unclear

Ron Lancaster of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto
He is the master of authentic learning. He travels around the world and snaps pictures and videos of anything that can be analyzed mathematically. He has a huge collection of images/videos from his travels. We reviewed several and discussed what questions we could ask about them. He is a big fan of having students import images into Geometer Sketchpad and draw analyze them by adding geometric constructs. He also mentioned an interesting math field trip that he does to a local shopping center. He visits the stores ahead of time and finds interesting data. He contacts the stores ahead of time and students visits in small groups. Each group starts at a different store to alleviate crowds (similar to a shotgun stat in golf). I marvel at his ability to literally see math data everywhere in the world - from store signs, to interesting buildings, to sculptures, to a sin wave as part of a company logo.

Summer Work

2010-06-28T19:59:00.004-04:00

I am embarking on a summer project to organize my thousands of Delicious links I collected over the past two years. I am not completely sold on how I am going to organize them, but I need to make them more user-friendly for students. This means identifying and grouping content, activities, drills, and games. I would like to have text and video content for each concept from pre-algebra to algebra. I am hopeful that I will return from a few conferences with a clear head to tackle the issues below. If you want to help in this endeavor, just leave a comment or shoot me a message using one of my other online aliases.

identify curricular units and structure

big ideas and key concepts
introductory content/video
real world connections
math connections (concept map)
unit tour of text if textbook used
projects

review each math link

directions for students
what is the goal (score, time, or completion of the activity)
proof of score - screen shot and drop box or does website track it?

how to organize links?

should I use a tool like only2clicks.com or weblist.me? (I like the graphic representation of the website for kids)
should I list them in this wiki?
should I use a social bookmarking service?

find video, simulation, or easy-to-read explanation for each curricular unit
how should I design activities?

collections of Word documents with instructions and/or handouts
should we use a lightweight platform like Udutu or trackstar (link)
do we need a content platform like sclipo.com or udemy.com

Should I to a fee-based math course to save time?

which one?

References
Image used under Creative Commons license (link)

One week of learning

2010-05-11T08:54:00.002-04:00

This post is about two very different learning experiences last week. I accompanied our eighth grade on our annual trip to Washington. It is a great trip, although understanding and appreciating aspects of the trip requires students to do some learning on their own. Sadly, this is not a strength of this generation (link). We toured the Capital after meeting our local state representative. The Capital has a brand new visitors center, but the tour was cut from the traditional teaching mold. We had wireless headsets to hear the tour guide. Interesting technology, but it could have been used for so much more. The tour guide blasted us with snippets of data about names, dates, and places. No overarching themes. No intriguing questions. Nothing to activate my brain. The students were bored in five minutes, while the teachers held on for fifteen minutes before losing interest. It struck me that a national monument (with a reasonable budget) has no idea how to present and educate people. Where was the multimedia? How about hotspots where we could hear audio reenactments of historical conversations? How about being able to choose the conversation? How about communicating with another eighth grade who was in the building?

Flip Side. It was interesting to note that the Capital tour was is in sharp contrast to an online graduate course I was completing. During the trip, I worked at night to complete a course about online education. The online course was taught using asynchronous tools. It was infinitely more interesting that my experience at the Capital. I have not met the professor or any of the students in person. Yet, I feel energized during the discussions and working on group projects. The course makes use of social networking (Web2.0) tools to communicate. These are the same tools I use everyday in my personal life. This online course successfully plugged into my digital world. Unfortunately, the Capital tour did not.

Online Education

2010-04-18T23:22:00.005-04:00

I feel guilty that I have not posted since January. It reminds me that teacher time goes very quickly without a strategic plan to evolve and improve beyond the daily interactions with students and parents. My time has been spent taking a grade class on all aspects of online classes. The research concludes that online courses are at least as effective as traditional (face-to-face) classes. In some cases, they may be more effective, but there needs to be more research to identify what types of subjects and pedagogy are best suited for online classes. In addition, there also needs to be more research on the best practices of designing an online class. There is no question that online students require organization skills, self-motivation, and considerable Web2.0 skills. Questions still remain. What other skills should students possess? What technical skills are required? How should the teacher organize and moderate the class? What student learning styles are best suited for an online class?

In my opinion, we are entering a new era of education where technology changes student behavior and the skills that are necessary for an information-based economy (see diagram below). To prove that I have not been slacking, check out my online class blog (link)

References:

The Shift image from Steve Hargadon via Jennifer Dorman presentation on Challenge Based Learning on Slideshare.net
Thumbnail Online Class image from link

History of US Public Education

2010-01-13T10:05:00.009-05:00

I am a second career teacher and so I have a limited understanding of the history of public eduction in the US. Pursing a masters degree has helped educate me on education. My most recent course on virtual schools exposed me to Disrupting Class by Christensen, Horn and Johnson. Part of their book reviews the history of education with an eye towards how industries change to survive amidst changing customer requirements. Some companies adapt to change and thrive, while others struggle and sometimes fail outright.

Moving the Goal Post
Why do we have education in this country? It is not part of any of the documents that laid the foundation. The purpose of education has changed overtime from a narrow focus for a limited number of students to a broader focus for a larger and more diverse student population. Thomas Jefferson wanted education to help produce new leaders and citizens that could self-govern. Towards the late 1890s and early 1900s, competition from Germany shifted the focus to teaching everyone a vocation. In 1905, only about one-third of first graders made it to high school. By 1930, three-quarters of first graders were attending high school. As the number of high school students grew, so did the curriculum with expanded offerings in art, vocational classes, and extra-curriculars. Around the 1950s, public schools expanded to include females, blacks, lower-income, and rural students. Brown vs KS Board of Ed played no small part in this inclusiveness. Towards the end of the 1950s, Russian technical prowess (Sputnik launch) prodded the US to focus the education system on turning out more engineers. The call to emphasize science and engineering was echoed again in the 1970s and 1980s. Japanese companies innovated and caused industry disruptions for their US competitors, which lead to a wave of downsizing.

For-Profit vs Non-profit
Businesses (for-profit) behave differently than schools (non-profit). In a business industry, a disruptive shift to some new performance metrics would open the door for new start-up companies to emerge with new business models structured to deliver the new value proposition. The new value proposition would serve consumers not being adequately served by the current generation of products. New start-ups in education face structural challenges that businesses do not. First, they must be allowed to offer their services and funded. Public schools are a legal monopoly and heavily unionized. Start-ups require tax dollars and this funding is taken from other public schools. Secondly, schools have dominant market share, so there are few "new" or unaffiliated customers. In order to take market share from existing public schools, start-ups need to create a disruptive innovation. Their new value proposition must be significantly better than public schools. Given the legal and labor restrictions, educational start-ups have been unable to sufficiently innovate save a few charter schools. Christensen, Horn and Johnson state that, "In our studies of disruptive innovation in the private sector, we are not aware of a single instance in which a for-profit company was able to implement successfully the disruptive innovation within its core business." Innovation is difficult. It will be especially difficult for a large, complicated system like the US educational system.

Summary
The US public educational system has changed dramatically over the past hundred years - driven by changing goals. The original schools were one-room schoolhouses where students of various abilities learned a relatively narrow curriculum. Although the number of high schools in 1970 was the same as 1930, there were major changes taking place. The prosperity of the US in latter part of the century enabled schools to grow into larger structures. Students were subdivided into grades and taught a broader curriculum with rich electives. Student participation in sports exploded. The educational system did well considering its goal was changed every ten to twenty years with relatively little additional investment or retraining.

Parting Thoughts
Over time, the US has looked to its educational system to improve competitiveness. The Nation at Risk report (1983) said, “secondary school curricula had been homogenized, diluted, and diffused to the point that they no longer have a central purpose. In effect, we have a cafeteria style curriculum in which the appetizers and desserts can easily be mistaken for the main courses.” Will the current focus on the end result (e.g., NCLB and SAT scores) help students prepare for a job? Do schools prepare students to be good citizens as Jefferson intended? Can our schools innovate enough to properly prepare students for increasing global competition in a technology-rich world?

Resources
1. Clayton Christensen, Michael B. Horn, and Curtis W. Johnson, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. McGraw-Hill, 2008.
2. Image used under Creative Commons license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveknapik/3787400601

Heutagogy

2010-01-03T20:40:00.000-05:00

While doing my weekend web surfing, I came across a blog posting called, "i am huetagogynous" (link) by Alexandra Pickett. The term was new to me. Another blogger (Amy Varano - link) provided more information about a related concept, "heutagogy learning environment". Heutagogy is the study of self-determined learning. It may be seen as an evolution from teacher-directed studies into more student-directed studies and connectivism. Connectivism is a progressive teaching method that can be viewed as an iteration of constructivism thanks to Web2.0 technologies. Constructivism is a pedagogy where students construct their own understanding of knowledge. It is heavily activity-based and often draws upon personal affinities. Connectivism is a pedagogy where students rely on information and collaboration from other to construct their own understanding. It is important because most people do not create new information at their job. Rather, they manage and analyze information. The explosion in digital content makes this skill like finding a needle in a haystack. The American Society of Training and Documentation (ASTD) estimates that the amount of knowledge in the world is now doubling every 18 months!! Not to long ago, information doubled every ten or twenty years. Information management is a critical skill that should be taught in school. And Connectivism should considered as the primary pedagogy.

Resources:
From Andragogy to Heutagogy by Stewart Hase and Chris Kenyon (link)
Introduction to Connectivism (link)
Image from Flickr and used under Creative Commons (link)

Power to the Learners - Part Three

2009-12-19T09:09:00.002-05:00

This post is the last in a three-part series. The first post (link) was inspired by Scot McLeod's Leadership Day, which was a virtual discussion conducted on July 12, 2009. Educators from around the world blogged about technology leadership and how to prepare students for the 21st century. The second post (link) was inspired by a graduate class I took about educational reform. One of our major resources was The Meaning of Educational Change by Michael Fullan. For the third post, I asked my Professional Learning Community for once sentence on how to improve eduction. Below are a Wordle of the responses and a graph of the most popular responses. For all responses, click here.

Teachers don't want more money, and they are not significantly hampered by administrative demands. The three top areas that are ripe for improvement are training, pedagogy and responsibility. Teachers want students to become more independent and take ownership of their education. For students to become learners, teachers need to lead by example and demonstrate their own lifelong learning. If learning if your craft, then it should be practiced all of the time. I'm sure professional athletes and musicians work at improving on a daily basis - including the summer. Teachers want more training and they want formal refresher programs even after certification. Training is closely related to the number five reform - time and planning. Teachers need time to collaborate and plan. Without enough of it during the school year, summer becomes the time for change. Unfortunately, most teachers go their separate ways and informal collaboration is extremely difficult. In addition, most teachers behave like their students and do little learning and preparation over the summer. In a survey with responses from my PLN, 62% of teachers work half or less-than-half of the summer. Another major potential improvement is pedagogy. Teachers want to teach critical thinking and focus on big, thematic ideas. Teachers want to teach authentic, real-world applications.

I hope that this blog spurs some thought an conversation. Happy holidays!

References
Stamp image from link

Power to the Learners - part two

2009-11-25T18:34:00.006-05:00

This is the second (of three) posts about educational reform and technology. The first post (link) reviews the words of wisdom from educators who blogged on Leadership Day 2009. This post focuses on technology integration ideas I picked up from a recent graduate class, which used Michael Fullan's excellent book, "The New Meaning of Educational Change". Fullan concludes that educational reform is challenging - especially when it involves technology. Much of the difficulty involves people issues. He believes that "in the field of educational change, everyone feels misunderstood" and that reform is "as much gardening as it is engineering."[1] This post looks at what makes change difficult and suggests ways to improve it. My third and last post will discuss ways to improve education that were shared with me via contributors in my Personal Learning Community (PLC).

Change is difficult for most people. In general, people are resistant to change - even when their life depends upon it. Deutschman (2005) studied patients with heart disease. Two years after coronary-artery bypass grafting, 90 percent of the patients had not changed their life style. In the short run, changes can be done if properly motivated (risk of death, incentives, leadership command, etc.). For changes to take hold over the long run, people’s belief system must be changed. Teachers are people too and so wrestle with change just like everyone else.

School Environment. Teaching is difficult because “the teacher’s craft is marked by the absence of concrete models for emulation, unclear lines of influence, multiple and controversial criteria, ambiguity about assessment timing and instability in the product.” (Lortie, 1975) [1]. Teachers relish their independence, but the autonomy also creates challenges. Teachers are generally isolated during the normal course of a day and it often breeds privatization. That is, teachers become territorial about their classroom and curriculum. Richard Elmore (2004a, 2004b) [1] wants a new definition of professionalism. "Educators equate professionalism with autonomy - getting to use their own judgment, to exercise discretion, to determine the conditions of their own work in classrooms and schools." How will teachers know that they are doing a good job? In absence of feedback from peers or the principal, they may become nervous about their effectiveness. This may, in turn, lead to more privatization of their classroom as a defense mechanism.

Politically-driven Priorities. What is taking shape today as a result of the “get wired” and the “raise test scores” movements, is NOT education addressing the needs of 21st century. It is 20th century, industrial age education supercharged by high-stakes testing and high-tech tools for doing 1920’s types of teacher-centered education. [2] Given that change and collaboration are difficult, these reform movements should be spear-headed by both planners and the people who will be responsible for implementing the changes. Change requires vision at the top and grass roots support from the rank-and-file.

Low Success Rate. Datnow and Stringfield [8 ] studied schools in the same district and reported that only one in thirteen schools studied continued to implement their chosen reform by the third year (8% success rate). Datnow et al. [9 ] conducted a more comprehensive longitudinal study of 13 schools. At the end of six years, only four were still implementing the chosen reform designs (31% success rate). It is helpful to look beneath these statistics and look at an individual example. Philadelphia’s School of the Future (SOF) is a school that opened in 2006 with great fanfare. It replaced a low-achieving school with a new $63 million facility and teachers. Each classroom had a Smartboard and every student was given a laptop. The Philadelphia School District partnered with Microsoft, one of the largest technology companies in the world. Needless to say, the project had significant financial and technical resources. Although it is only been open for a few years, it has been a major failure.[10]

Pathways Problem. Educational reform rates are low because "educational changes is technically simple and socially complex”.[1] Fullan characterizes school change as a “system of [nine] variables” [11] that comprise a “pathways” problem, where combinations are unique and not necessarily transferable between schools. This would be like a doctor building his knowledgebase of symptoms and treatments using a relatively small set of test patients. To make matters worse, most schools don't collect quality data about each of these factors. In their zeal to implement the actual changes, they don't think much about measuring and documenting the success factors.

Research Disconnect. Educational methods tend to change/improve very slowly because there is a large gap between brain and learning research and teaching techniques. Teachers generally do not routinely locate and translate research-based knowledge to inform their efforts (Grimmer & MacKinnon, 1982; Huberman, 1989; Richardson & Placier, 2001) [3] The culprit is once again time for teachers to meet and skills to harness their collaboration.

Professional Development. Professional Development (PD) is a form of incremental change that can lay the foundation for more significant changes. Schools need to find their own blend of effective PD. This will provide insights into how to implement educational reform. It will likely involve buy-in from teachers, teaching to a range of capabilities and beliefs, and providing time and support for teachers to personalize the changes.

Professional Learning Communities. Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are an excellent complement to formal PD. They are informal mechanisms for teachers to build and manage knowledge, create shared language and standards of practice, and sustain aspects of school culture. [6] PLCs often done electronically, which opens the doors to other schools around the world. By sharing their teaching methods and curriculum, PLC members gain important insights into best practices. At the very least, sharing is a form of reflection that will likely lead to refinement. Teachers who pursue advanced degrees while teaching can empathize with learners. In turn, this may make them more introspective about their own teaching methods. A teacher who is not taking any formal classes must rely on their PLC to continually improve their teaching. See blog post about PLCs (link)

Where will I find the time? In a constructivist teaching environment, teachers need lots of time. They need time to design a project with or without colleagues, or search for an one on the Internet. They need time to try the project like a student and “debug” it. Further, teachers need time to create questions and scenarios for the activity that will lead to deep meaning. [1]
Josh Allen [4] believes that technology integration needs to be an integral part of every subject and not a stand-alone skill.

Every teacher survey conducted in the last 30 years has concluded that teachers don't have enough time. So, why are we continually presenting technology separately? I would love to have our curriculum writers do more of the teacher training in their building on how to use technology to enhance their curriculum area. As a wise person once said, sometimes it helps for someone else to say the exact same thing you said. The curriculum writers would be expected to learn from the technology leader how to use the tool most effectively, but then the curriculum writer trains the rest of the building with the technology leader in the room and available for support.

Just Hire Better Teachers. Turning over staff to support reform is not the answer. Wholesale changes are even more difficult than the reform effort itself. Sometimes the school professional culture makes change difficult. Maybe schools need to be clearer about their professional culture and differences from other schools. This may help teachers accept jobs at schools that are more closely aligned with their skill set, teaching approach and beliefs. This mismatch probably accounts for the high teacher turnover. The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF) found that:

* 46% of newly hired teachers in the US leave after the first five years (The Teaching Commission, 2006)
* 33% leave after three years
* The first few years of teaching significantly affects careers. This includes frustrating and driving out good teachers and poor induction programs that do not provide enough new teacher assistance.

The Vision Thing. It is critical to clearly articulate changes and why they are neccessary or beneficial. Moreover, building a shared vision requires common experiences and reflection about those experiences. Doing the right thing needs to become part of “muscle memory”, which is not easy for most teachers who constantly question what and why they are doing. They ask themselves, "Is a paticular action innovative and worthy of being shared? Is a particular action helping students succeed?" This self-reflection and critical analysis of their environment is normal for adults and is actually the foundation of Transformative Learning. Gross and Associates (1971) found that problems related to clarity appear in virtually every study of change. Very simple and insignificant changes can be very clear, while more difficult and worthwhile ones may not be amenable to easy clarification.

Curriculum Design. Have an instructional model. Teacher Sean Nash [5] wants to put more pressure on teachers. (I agree - see my blog post)

Hold staff accountable for bringing their skills up to the present realities of the 21st Century. We’ve been living passively in this century for almost ten years now. It is time for all of us to sit up and take a direct and active role in the changes happening within the learning profession. Implementing technology-oriented change needs to be done in conjunction with the curriculum. If your lone goal is to have students, teachers and administrators all gleefully pushing buttons and gazing at computer screens, then your work here is done. Mr. Nash advocates an “instructional model” that is much more significant than just a "soundbyte". This means driving technology deep into the curriculum so that you have a learner-centered instructional model based on the constructivist nature of human learning.

What can be done? Educational reform is difficult for schools that are not learning environments for their staff. England, Teacher Training Agency (2005) has worked with teachers to make their curriculum reflect new developments in literacy and numeracy reform. It has used financial incentives to attract candidates to the profession, including areas of greatest needs like math and science . Teacher Donelle O’Brien [15] believes that we need to include students in any reform discussions. "Without them, it is like a sportswriter penning a column about a game without interviewing any players. The column will be fact-oriented, one-dimensional and prone to the author’s bias and perceptions."

Success means collaboration. I am a proponent of teachers collaborating on curriculum and pedagogy. Fullan says, successful educational reform shift the focus from my to our via:

* Break down the autonomy of the classroom so that greater consistency of effective practice can be achieved.
* Develop a curricula lab where teachers can come and revamp their curriculum in small groups.
Look in the Mirror. Before implementing a new educational initiative, schools should be frank about their capacity for change. Luo[7] suggests that preparation for change involves being introspective and gauging the school’s readiness for change. Consider the following six questions, which I adapted to be relevant for education:

1. Exactly what problem are we trying to solve with this rule/regulation/innovation?
2. Is this really the best way to approach it?
3. What unintended consequences can be anticipated?
4. What alternative approaches might work better?
5. What is the benefit of the innovation? Are the benefits obvious to those who will implement it?
6. Can you actually demonstrate the benefit? Will the benefit be obvious to those whom it was intended?

The most important points that jump out to me are the unintended consequences and benefits. Reforms can shift workloads intentionally and unintentionally. This is why it is important to have all constituencies represented in the planning stages. The benefits should be obvious and compelling. This will help foster a shared vision and excitement that the reform is worthwhile and will succeed. In addition, Luo suggests the following checklist of factors to help organizations measure readiness for change:

1. Sponsorship (endorsement of change from the top)
2. Leadership (day-to-day support for change)
3. Motivation (urgency from top management to implement change)
4. Direction (clear vision of what should result from change)
5. Measurements (ways of determining achievement of change)
6. Organizational context (relation to other actions or changes)
7. Processes/functions (staff willingness to change for the good of the organization)
8. Competitor benchmarking (how other competitors are doing with similar changes)
9. Customer focus (knowledge and understanding of customers and about the anticipated change)
10. Rewards (what managers and employees get for changing)
11. Organizational structure (balance between flexibility to
12. encourage change and sufficient stability to allow change to unfold over time)
13. Communication (open, two-way communication at all levels about the change program)
14. Organizational hierarchy (number of levels in the organization, the fewer the better)
15. Prior experience with change (and degree of success)
16. Morale (spirit and trust in the workforce)
17. Innovation (encouragement for innovation in the organization)
18. Decision-making (degree of staff involvement in decisionmaking, combined with rapid turnaround when decision is needed)

Effective Leadership. One of the biggest challenges of educational reform is the scarce availability of high-quality leadership. Principal Adam Dewitt [14] thinks that being an administrator reminds him about teaching his son how to ride a two-wheeled bike. Principals need to be close so that teachers can overcome apprehension and be reassured when they look over their shoulder. Principals help teachers regain their balance as necessary. Once teachers start to get the hang of riding without assistance, the principal should “give them time to practice and develop benchmarks to check their own progress.” Good with tech or ask the right questions.
Josh Allen [15] argues that principals do not have to be master teachers in all areas of the curriculum (including technology), "Principals do not need to be tech-savvy. They need only to understand the benefits and ask salient questions to hold people accountable. Take an interest in projects that teachers are expending significant resources or effort. Motivate teachers to innovate and try something new."

A recent post from Sharon Elin [13] made it crystal clear to me how good leadership looks:

Leadership is learned — and earned — from the trenches. A powerful leader should be able to perform any job his or her followers are asked to do, and furthermore, should be able to do it better than they can. No mediocre teacher should be allowed to rise to the ranks of school leadership. As instructional leaders, administrators should be able to pass their passion on to their faculty. They should be able to mentor teachers, model techniques, and identify weaknesses and strengths in their teaching staff. Their first love — their calling, their passion — should be the students and the educational process, above all, not their own career advancement. If we can blend the dividing line between administrators and the “troops” in the classrooms, and between the school board members, district personnel, and school administrators, we can begin to communicate with each other rather than fight a war of “us vs. them.” We are the “embedded leaders,” out in the trenches, in the classrooms, the ones who see most of the action. Like embedded reporters for the media who live with troops in battle, we are close to the action and can best report what we see and what is needed — and we have a first-person point of view about what can be done to improve the chances of success. Once we step over those lines in the sand, we can forge a common bond of leadership to get our messages across. Granted, there will always be positions of power “above us” that set policy and make rules that we must uphold, but as leaders ourselves — in our own spheres of influence — we can affect change and improve the status quo, and by doing so, earn the right to suggest innovative, constructive steps toward the progress we want to see.

Recommendations.

Fullan believes that implementation must start relatively soon after the planning phase. "Success is one-quarter having the right ideas and three quarters establishing effective procedures for a given situation." His research shows that too much time in the planning stage usually leads to failure. "People do not learn or accomplish complex changes by being told or shown what to do. Deeper meaning and solid change must be born over time. You get farther, faster by producing quality materials and establishing a highly interactive infrastructure of pressure and support."

Pfeffer and Sutton(2000) have created a list of what to do and not to do [12]:

1. Do not assume that your version of what the change should be is the only one that should be implemented. Exchange your reality with others.
2. Assume that any significant innovation requires individual implementers to work out their own meaning. Effective implementation is a process of clarification
3. Assume that conflict and disagreement are not only inevitable but fundamental to successful change.
4. Assume people need pressure to change. But it will only be effective under conditions that allow them to react, interact with others, and obtain assistance to develop new capabilities
5. Assume effective change takes time.
6. Do not assume that the reason for lack of implementation is outright rejection. Learn to value rejection because resisters have good ideas and have a keen sense for foreseeing problems.
7. Do not expect all or even most people or groups to change.
8. Assume that you will need a plan that addresses the factors known to affect implementation.
9. Assume no amount of knowledge will ever make totally clear what action should be taken.
10. Assume that changing the culture of institutions is the real agenda - not implementing single innovations. Don't be seduced into looking for the silver bullet

Conclusion
Change is difficult. Educational change is extremely difficult because students and teachers cannot stop what they are doing. Meaningful change must be done gradually. Powerful leadership is critical, since teachers need to believe in the vision and goal. Further, there needs to be teacher leadership to provide support and sustain the momentum. I believe that schools with vibrant professional growth and development (PG&D) efforts are more likely to succeed than those without PG&D efforts. In addition, teachers should be refining their pedagogy and curriculum with peers (either in person or via a PLN). If the change is related to technology, it is important for administrators and teachers to experience the technological tools that students will be using. They are more complex than a traditional teaching tools because they have an unique interfaces and their own environment. Lastly, Fullan suggests the following to foster change: (i) reflective dialogue, (ii) de-privatization of practice, (iii) collective focus on student learning, (iv) collaboration, and (v) shared norms and values.

References
[1]Fullan, Michael. The New Meaning of Educational Change. Teachers College Press. New York, NY. 2007.
[2] Scardamalia, M., Getting Real About 21st century education. The Journal of Educational Change (in press)
[3] Hiebert, J., Gallimore, R., Stiger, W., A Knowledge Base for the Teaching Profession: What Would It Look Like and How Can We Get One?, Educational Researcher, June/July 2002, Vol. 31, No. 5
[4] “Technology Fridge” July 13, 2009. Accessed July 15, 2009.
[5] Nash, Sean. “Four pillars of technology integration”. Weblog entry. “nashworld” July 13, 2009. Accessed July 15, 2009.
[6] McLaughlin, M., & Talbert, J., Professional Communities and the work of high school teaching. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001
[7] Luo, John S, et al, Considerations in Change Management Related to Technology, Academic Psychiatry, Vol 30, no 6, November-December, 2006
[8] Datnow, A., & Stringfield, S. Working together for reliable school reform. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk. Vol 5, num 1-2, 2000.
[9] Datnow, A., Hubbard, L., & Mehan, H., Extending educational reform from one school to many, Routledge Falmer Press, London, 2002
[10] Stansbury, Meris, School of the Future: Lessons in Failure, Inside Higher Ed June 1, 2006, access via web on July 15, 2009
[11] The nine factors fall under three categories of the nature of the change (need, clarity, complexity, quality/practicality, environmental factors (district, community, principal, teacher), and external factors (government and other agencies, standards)
[12] Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. The knowing-doing gap. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, 2000
[13] Elin, Sharon. "If I Could Change the Educational System". weblog entry. "Edutwist" March 1, 2009. Accessed September 22, 2009
[14] Dewitt, A., Learning to Ride/Learning to Trust. weblog entry. "Leading 180 Days" July 13, 2009. Accessed September 22, 2009.
[15] Allen, J., Leadership Day 2009 Stiff Condiment. "Technology Fridge" July 12, 2009. Accessed October 12, 2009.
[16] O'Brien, Donelle. “Embrace learning in community”. Weblog entry. “Lifelong Learning 2.0” July 12, 2009. Accessed July 15, 2009.

Sarbanes-Oxley Meets Education

2009-09-21T21:09:00.003-04:00

Teaching is a second career for me. I spent fifteen years on Wall Street as an analyst. My passion was researching technology companies to understand them better than anyone else. Towards the end of my tenure, the Internet Bubble compromised business practices. The investment banking divisions of brokerage companies pushed to underwrite Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) of marginal companies. The analyst's role was supposed to be a major component of the due diligence. Analysts often rubber-stamped deals in the quest of large year-end bonuses. At the same time, accounting firms were also benefiting from the birth of new companies in the form of an increasing market for fees. Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation gave teeth to laws that were already in place. Senior management and the board of directors always had a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. SOX made them personally liable for inaccurate financial statements.

Radical Idea
Why am I talking about financial services? The response to such a widespread lapse in judgment was not lots of tests and metrics (like high stakes tests). It was holding the management more responsible for the job they are doing. Here is my radical idea. Principals should certify that they have quality teachers? My definition of quality teachers is not test scores. Test scores are like financial statements (particularly earning per share) in the Pre-SOX days - they can be manipulated. There is also debate as to the validity of test scores over short time frames (e.g., year-to-year). I don't think we need to rely on data, although perhaps there is a place for it as supportive evidence. My idea is to have principals certify that their teachers are good teachers. I believe that a veteran principal or teacher knows good teaching when they see it. They don't need reams of data. They need to observe teachers frequently and carefully enough to be confident that they have a quality staff.

Looking forward to comments!

Sources:
Image from http://jyotiraj.wordpress.com/2007/10/14/s-ox-sarbanes-oxley-act/

Power to the Learners - part one

2009-08-13T23:08:00.000-04:00

I recently completed a graduate course on educational reform with a focus on technology integration. It was eye-opening because several studies show a very low success rate for projects. This does not bode well for students because the twenty-first century requires different skills to be successful in a rapidly globalizing economy that is increasingly information-based. The economic model is even different; scarcity as a driver of value gives way to knowledge creation and collaboration as information is abundant and nearly free. During this class, a highly relevant discussion took place over the Internet. On July 12th, educators from around the world blogged about technology leadership and how to prepare students for the 21st century. The virtual event was called Leadership Day (#LeadershipDay09). This was the third year and it is the brainchild of Scott McLeod, an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Educational Administration program at Iowa State University. This is the first of a three-part blog post about reform. This blog highlights important posts from #LeadershipDay09. The second posting will be discussions from my grad class and an important book by Michael Fullan (link). The third post will be a survey that I have been conducting over the past few months about how to improve education (link).

Barbara McCormick (link) identified that the current wave of technology is fostering a fundamental shift in education. “Educators have to be willing to grow, take risks and think outside the box if they are going to embrace the tools of the future. I believe Alan November said it well in Empowering Students with Technology when he wrote, "the real revolution is a transformational shift of control from the school system to the learner" (2001). Technology is not an add-on but an integral part of the curriculum creating a change in the teacher to student relationships in today's classrooms.”
We have a choice to change at a comfortable pace, or have change thrust upon us. Carl Gaines (link), a teacher and technology coordinator points to a recent report by the U.S Department of Education. The study (link) found that students who performed some or all of their class online performed better than those students who took the same course face-to-face. And, students who did a blend of online and face-to-face instruction, did best of all.
Dennis Richards (link), a retired superintendent, sees an alarming trend. "When it comes to learning beyond school, students have choices. In many cases, students are beginning to see school as less and less relevant to their learning. Many students are using or learning to use the technology tools I mentioned above to learn without us. If this trend continues, combined with classroom activities that for too many students are unengaging, unmotivating, and unchallenging, some predict that as students develop personal learning environments less connected to what schools currently offer them, schooling as we know it will become less and less relevant."
Teacher Joseph J. Bires (link) summed it up well by quoting an unnamed wise man, “school shouldn’t be preparation for life, it should be life”. If school is going to be life and life is full of problems, then so will education.
Rob Jacobs (link) also advocates change and highlighted proof via Howard Rheingold’s book, “Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution” and his prediction that the next major “killer app” would not be hardware devices or software programs, but social practices. Students are using technology to change the way they interact with their peers (e.g., instant message, video chat, text messaging, Facebook, Myspace, etc.). As educators, we need to embrace this so that we can help convert it from a purely social network to more of a learning network. The longer we wait, then the larger the barrier will grow between the teacher generation and the student generation."
Michael Kaechele (link) describes a classroom that has been specifically created for the 21st century. “The ideal classroom would be 1:1 laptops with no textbooks. The internet and world would be the "text" along with conversations with students and adults from around the world. Teachers would not use textbooks as easy lesson plans, but would continually be exploring the web themselves finding the latest resources to engage their students. Students and teachers would learn together and document their learning on blogs, wikis, and digital portfolios. The portfolio would continue with the student throughout their school career showing their learning progress. Students would use Skype and other social media to collaborate with schools around the world in real life projects that integrate multiple content areas. "Homework" would be students continuing these conversations on the internet outside of school and researching more about them. "Classwork" would be students sharing and teaching each other what they discovered at home.” Further, he believes that the next generation classroom is very different and teachers and administrators will need to feel extremely comfortable if they are to embrace them. “These kind of changes can not be implemented by individual teachers in isolation, but require leadership from the top that is willing to take risks and encouraging risk-taking by its teachers and students. Teacher training is imperative to successful implementation.”
Josh Allen (link) places the failure of reform on human ego. “There is another, sometimes more influential, issue that effects the process: ego. It's also the one people are least likely to admit they need to fix. Technology isn't used in a lot of districts because administrators don't understand it, which means they don't have experience with it, which means they won't encourage or recommend that it gets used in the district. Too many are afraid to look ignorant in front of their staff, so they pass technology off as something "costly" and "extra." It's the exact same reason that teachers don't use it, only they don't want to look ignorant in front of their students.
Teacher Kelly Tenkely (link) finds the “biggest hindrance to effective school technology is not a lack of funding, resources, or technology. The biggest hindrance has been teachers who are unwilling to learn something new. Excellent teachers need to be constantly learning, and modeling that learning process to the students they teach. They must be willing to adapt their lessons and teaching as the world changes to properly prepare the students they teach.”
Damian Bariexca, (link) a psychologist and teacher, found that his principal was able to lead despite not having much technical ability. The principal made time for him to discuss projects. More importantly, the principal asked how and why it would be beneficial to learning.” He was thorough and too time out of his busy schedule to "spend many sessions with me, not only learning about whatever project I initially proposed, but also to follow up with me, observe my classes, and speak to my students. He was also available to me as a sounding board; quite a few times."
Teacher Joseph Bires (link) has several excellent ideas. "There are no one shot deals. Educational change takes time and it takes a sustained investment in long term innovation. Schools took this long to get to their current state, they wouldn’t change overnight. There are no quick fixes. Doing a lot today will overwhelm your already overwhelmed staff, create a long term plan to change your school through sustained innovation." Technology Coordinators need to "practice what you preach. If you don’t blog, twitter, use a wiki, share, or collaborate, why should your teachers? When students have a problem, do you want them to have to make an appointment to see their teacher? Be the change you want to see in the world, don’t just talk about the change you want to see in the world." Prepare the staff for failure and don;t let them use it as an excuse to discredit the technology integration. "Did you know that most major software projects fail? Do you know how many projects at Microsoft, Apple, and Google never went anywhere? Last time I checked those companies were still very successfully and they were successful because they they are safe places were employees don’t feel afraid to fail, moreover many innovations we have today are the result of failed projects. For example, the idea of the iPhone is build on an earlier idea that Apple failed with called the Newton. Everyone remembers the Apple II, but if there were no Apple I then there would have been no Apple II. Success is a long winding (and windy) road." He believes that "professional Development is a micro NOT a macro process. Each teacher is responsible for his/her own growth because they are a professional. Each school needs to grow into a “community of practice”.
Principal Adam Dewitt (link) thinks that being an administrator reminds him about teaching his son how to ride a two-wheeled bike. Principals need to be close so that teachers can overcome apprehension and be reassured when they look over their shoulder. Principals help teachers regain their balance as necessary. Once teachers start to get the hang of riding without assistance, the principal should “give them time to practice and develop benchmarks to check their own progress.”
Teacher Errin Gregory (link) has insights about leadership. “Leadership is…about energizing other people to make good decisions and do other things. In other words, it is about helping release the positive energy that exists naturally within people. Effective leadership inspires more than empowers; it connects more than it controls; it demonstrates more than it decides. It does all this by engaging - itself above all and consequently others.” Further, she discusses that there is a leadership model for everyone: leading from in front, leading from beside, and leading from behind.
Paul Bogush (link) reminds us that technology is not a silver bullet. It will likely accentuate both good and bad teaching pedagogy. "I don’t like being known as the teacher who uses technology to motivate their students. I don’t like people looking at the products my kids produce and only focus on the technology we used. I don’t like it when someone suggests that kids like my class because of the technology, or that we are a computer class first, a social studies class second. I have never inserted any piece of technology into a unit to make my class more interesting, engaging, or fun. I did not start using technology and web 2.0 tools to help my units become stronger, more conceptual, or more authentic. I did not start using technology to put the STORY into our hiSTORY class. I did not start using technology to increase my kids desire to learn, grow, and become more independent. That was all happening before we started using technology."
Principal Chris Lehman (link) runs a very successful project-oriented, technology high school. His words of wisdom are:
- Know why you are changing... and know what you are giving up by making this change. Every change creates winners and losers, so be sure to think through what you gain and what you lose (thanks to Neil Postman for that framework.) which leads to...
- Always ask "What is the worst consequence of your best idea?" Do it for two reasons - one, because if you can't live with that consequence, don't do what you planned, but two, because the process of thinking this through will help you (and your team) mitigate the problems and you won't be as surprised when the thing you didn't think of comes up.
- Research like crazy. Who has tried what you are doing? Who has tried something close to what you're doing? Who is talking about it? Who is writing about it? Who says the idea is already crazy? There aren't many truly new ideas in education, so figure out the history of your idea and learn from who has come before you.
- Get lots of opinions - Come up with a smart, sensible, honest way to explain your idea and then listen. Listen a lot. Listen to the folks who don't like the idea, and ask them why.
- Be honest - Don't oversell, don't overpromise, and don't pretend that the idea is perfect.
- Build consensus - If only a few people are on-board with the idea, it won't work. But consensus doesn't mean taking something from everyone and sticking it onto the original idea until what you have is the worst of committee-based decisions. It means listening for the truths in what other people are telling you and being willing to make substantive change when it makes sense.
- Know when to move forward. Don't let ideas die in committee because the team gets hung up on the final 5% of an idea.
- Set realistic expectations for initial success, and then set up a plan to get there. If it's a tech idea -- get the tech right. (Nothing worse than getting everyone excited about a new innovation and then getting everything but the tech side of it right. It took us a year to get our website even close to where we wanted it at SLA, fortunately, we got enough right that folks kept at it.)
- Finally, keep communicating throughout the process.
Principal Bryan Painter (link) believes that teachers need to accept different levels of expertise. This will be a critical philosophy for teachers to reconcile their advanced subject skills with nascent technical skills.
- In the last several years I’ve come to believe in what I call a “continuum of understanding.” Nothing empirical or scientific about this – simply a belief that we all have varied levels of understandings and abilities on given skills and concepts. In working with my staff we use four levels: Exposure, Awareness, Understanding, and Expertise. Teachers and administrators – at least most I know, feel immense desire and even pressure to live in understanding and expertise. Put it in front of us, make it at least semi-job-related, and most of us will strive to squeeze it into our ever-growing toolbox that is the teaching profession. Incredibly admirable, yes – but also crazy and unrealistic. Trying to be good-to-great at everything only leads to high stress, a lack of balance, and possible burnout.
- In many ways our schools are antiquated and built upon on a century old (at least) model of education. Yet in other ways we’re on the verge of something very different, very exciting. The future of schools – even the here-and-now of schools, will offer new definitions of connection and collaboration, new types of relationships, and new expectations of our students and teachers. Administrators must lead this charge – I firmly believe this, but they cannot lead it alone. We must develop teacher leaders in our schools and districts, building capacity and learning networks through a commitment to professional development time and resources. We must recognize the steep slope of “what is known” and fight with all our might to keep up – knowing full well that our teachers and principals will not survive if we expect them to attain understanding or expertise with each and every new concept and skill.
- How do we push ourselves and others to new heights without driving them out of education? I think we have a responsibility to understand context – where we’ve come from, where we are, and where we’re going, AND we must be mindful of the understandings we require of teachers at a given time. Expectations must be realistic – often at a personal level, and when possible they should be stated with a desired time frame in mind. We must name our exposure experiences, labeling them as such so teachers don’t reject new learnings or burn out trying to master them all in a short amount of time. Permission must be granted for teachers to reside in exploration, with time to learn and “be messy” while blurring the gap between what we know and what we do. There will be some skills and understandings that we’ll expect of all teachers, possibly learned over time. Other skills may not require universal expertise or even understanding – just some experts who can fill roles or support others when needed. Even as a building leader I don’t need to know how to do everything, but I should have an awareness of what is out there – and perhaps more importantly, an awareness of who has the expertise if I want to learn more.
Teacher Donelle O’Brien (link) wants frank round-table discussions about the “elephants in the room.” Her idea of round-table discussions involves honest discussions about both problems and solutions. She advocates a shared commitment for technology proficiency and innovative learning:
- When all stakeholders take ownership in the school’s mission, passion becomes infectious.
- We practice good leadership when we become transparent, exposing thoughts and positions on issues with an open-door policy.
- We can increase student engagement and academic success when we personalize learning for students, provide time for reflection, and facilitate learning opportunities with relevance and meaning.
Principal Jeanette Johnson (link) views her PLC not as her own source of change. “I know I will always come back to it, because I experience first-hand the power of technology to transform learning. Like our students, I am a student, enrolled in an official program, pursuing an official degree.... and I am learning a good bit from some of my courses. However, I seem to learn just as much, if not more, from my own network - especially the sites in my RSS reader, and those great educators and thinkers who I follow on Twitter. Indeed, one of my goals as a leader for this year is to work to engage more of our staff in developing their own digital PLNs - because seeing the value this can bring to them as learners is, I think, the single most important thing that can lead to their understanding of how digital technologies can help the learners they work with in their classes every single day. "
Theresa Reagan (link) believes that PLNs and Web2.0 tools are beneficial to teachers. "Before last summer I would have said that I was an avid learner. I read many professional development books, went to many conferences, and participated in face-to-face book clubs. I would converse with others about what I was learning, but I rarely wrote anything about it (unless it was for a class/credit). Last summer I discovered blogging, wikis and even twitter. The collaborative nature of these web 2.0 tools facilitated the need to express my ideas/reflections about what I was learning in writing. I now feel like I understand what I have been learning much more deeply. I am more confident and capable of teaching the things I have learned, and feel much more committed and capable of facilitating and advocating for change in those areas. I have always been rather tech savvy, but for some reason the whole web 2.0 evolution caught me sleeping. The web 2.0 tools helped me to become a more active learner in two ways:
- Writing - I knew what the research said about the benefits of nonfiction writing or “writing across the curriculum”. Now that I have experienced the benefits I understand that it is not about benefiting writing (a misconception on my part). It is about the increased understanding of the subject you are writing about. The benefit to writing is a by-product. I prefer to call “writing across the curriculum” “documented thinking across the curriculum” because of this misconception.
- Collaboration – I could have done the writing about my learning without web 2.0 tools in a diary or something similar. However, the web 2.0 tools offer an added dimension – an audience. When I write for an audience I think more deeply about my ideas and what I have learned, and I spend time organizing that thinking so that I can articulate it in such a way that it can be understood by others. The audience itself provides additional opportunities to learn. They may agree, disagree, pose questions, or take your ideas in directions you would not have thought to take them. It is quite exhilarating to have someone from across the world comment on one of your posts or have the author of a book you are reflecting about comment on your reflection.

This is the first part of a three part blog. The second posting will be notes from a technology change grad class and influential book by Michael Fullan.

Resources:
Image used under Creative Commons license (link)

Block Scheduling

2009-07-29T18:48:00.001-04:00

Cell Block?
My school is moving to a 12-day rotating schedule where class times range from 40 minutes to 90 minutes. Moving classes to different times of the day reduces the likelihood that students will do poorly because of their physiology. Classes meet sometimes when students are at their best and sometimes when their attention is not at full strength. In addition, only four of major subjects will meet on any given day. I am excited because the longer class periods are more conducive to projects and I am a huge fan of activity-based learning.

A side effect of block scheduling is that teachers need to prepare and be FLEXIBLE. For example, a class can meet three, four or five times a week. When a class meets three times a week, the classes will be on the longer side, but it still takes PLANNING. Looking at the calendar, it is possible that when a class meets three times, it will do so on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday or Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. In these situations I will not see a class for four days - two week days and the weekend. It is CRITICAL to spend time summarizing each class for reinforcement and reviewing at the start of each class. The biggest wildcard will be events that interfere with the normal rotation, such as standardized testing, play/musical rehearsals, and special assemblies.

Summary
Block scheduling is good because it provides for longer class periods. This may or not be good based on faculty. If they do not plan carefully, then students will get lost from the lack of continuity. The extended class periods should be used for more project-based learning. I believe that successful implementation will rely on teachers being flexible. Teachers must be willing to try new activities and projects and revisit topics when necessary. I would love to hear from teachers who have been teaching in this format.

The Year that Was

2009-07-03T13:28:00.003-04:00

Summer is an excellent time to reflect on the past year and make improvements for next year. Our school completed our first student surveys for student to provide numeric and qualitative feedback. At the same time I was writing this post, I was reading similar posts and comments on Paul Bogush's blog (link). Here are the things that I am going to work on to be a better teacher:

Give a brief assessment at the beginning of each unit to know how much students already know.
Students that do exceptionally well on the pre-assessment should be given a challenging project so they are not bored.
Relate the assessment at the end of a unit to the pre-assessment so students can reflect on how they have grown and learned.
Make an effort to listen to your students during the year. Perceptions are important. Are you moving too fast or too slow? Are you are available for extra help as you think? Are you warm and welcoming outside of class? Do students believe that you are an export? Are there social aspects to the class that you are not seeing? Are the students engaged or bored?
Use more technology and do more group projects. Have a range of activities for different levels of students. Have backup activities in case it is not providing the desired outcomes. Have extra activities to challenge students.
Experience what students are experiencing. Take time to sit in on a class that you know little about so you can better empathize how some of your students may feel.
Communicate the purpose of each unit and review what was learned at the end of the unit.
Bring real world projects into the classroom.
Get to know students better and understand stress in their life. Keep alert for sadness that might be disguised as a smile or a missed homework assignment.
Make sure that you practice what you preach. If you are a math teacher, do math in your spare time. If you are an English teacher, then write in your spare time. If you are a science teacher, do experiments in your spare time. (link)
Have students write a paragraph about the teacher that influenced them the most.
Blog about teaching experiences.
Have two projectors in class. One for me to show demonstrations and one for students to ask questions or collaborate with other students.

Photo used under Creative Commons license from Flickr (link)

Are Digital Textbooks a Catalyst?

2009-06-25T20:21:00.002-04:00

In 2005, The Vail School District in Vail, AZ substituted laptops for textbooks in Vail's first 1-to-1 high school (link). Superintendent Calvin Baker oversaw the change and his district now had the freedom to purchase digital content the way he purchased digital music. The 1-to-1 program allowed teachers to surf the Internet, find interesting content, and only download what they need. Teachers found it easy to adapt their "playlists" to state standards. This more malleable content has great potential for individualzied learning and will work well with curriculum design methodologies like Understanding by Design (UbD) .

Creativity
The move away from textbooks has put the district back into control of its curriculum. Baker noted that there is more creativity and collaboration, "I thought that when we implemented Beyond Textbooks, teachers would go out and find the 'music', so to speak, that they needed and share it with their peers," he says. "The phenomenon that has occurred is that a significant amount of teachers are saying, 'All that stuff that's already out there is pretty good, but I'm going to write my own.' They're actually creating their own music. They're writing it, they're uploading it, and teachers all over the district now can use it." This blog discusses some creative ways to have a paperless classroom (link)

Collaboration
The ability to work together has inspired teachers to take more ownership of the curriculum. The district built curriculum guides in Apple iCal and each unit has a link to a wiki page. Both are dynamic and support RSS subscriptions for change notification. Kelly Creasy, a fifth grade teacher at Vail's Ocotillo Ridge Elementary School has seen her peer network grow since she began posting. "Normally you just have the other teachers here at your site, and occasionally if you're on a committee or if you're at a meeting at the district office, you might touch base with other teachers in your grade level, but that's such a rare occurrence," she says. "Now you're finding out names; I know other teachers because of what they've posted on the Beyond Textbooks site. I've gotten e-mails from other teachers saying that they liked what I posted and wondering if I had anything else. I've started to form partnerships with other teachers, sending materials back and forth."

Inverting the Curriculum
Before the 1-to-1 and digital textbooks programs, Vail was like most other school districts in that they tried to shoehorn textbooks and supplemental materials into state standards. Now, Vail inverts the curriculum by starting with the desired outcome and working backwards. Vail CIO Matt Federoff says, "We were working backward. We started with what we had and then tried to make it work. We realized that what we should do is start with the standards, and use the standards to then select our content."

Textbooks 2.0
Textbooks are squarely in the cross hairs of educational reform. Students dislike them because of their weight. Teachers realize that new editions are slow to evolve - other than a few new pictures. The notion of the textbook is outdated. Their manufacture is rooted in ideas from the industrial revolution. Why does a student need to carry around a whole year of content? Teachers should be leveraging the incredible amount of educational content on the web. This is a great opportunity to find deeper, more conceptual material and real world application. Moreover, teachers should be starting to create their own content or mashups of other sources.

OpenSouce Movement
There is a groundswell of movement towards open source textbooks. At the very least, textbooks written using web2.0 technologies can be updated frequently and incorporate ideas from diverse sources - including teachers and students. This would be a boon for Creative Commons (link), who seek to foster orderly sharing of ideas when profit is not the motive. Smarthistory.org (link) built a whole website because, "we are dissatisfied with the large expensive art history textbook. We find that they are difficult for many students, contain too many images, and just are not particularly engaging". FLexr (link) provides a content repository where teachers can customize their own textbook with open source content from multiple sources. See my Delicious bookmarks for related links (link)

California recently gave a boost to the open source movement when it formed the California Open Source Textbook Project (COSTP) to combat their spending of $400 million on textbooks annually. COSTP is a collaborative, public/private undertaking that is trying to create broad distribution of existing K-12 "open source" resources. This takes social networking and brings it to the textbook industry. Why should textbooks be immune to a Web2.0-type movement?

Summary
Open source textbooks could pave the way for collaboration between teachers and eventually allow students into the design of their own curriculum (key aspect of lifelong learning). It has the potential to lower expenses, reduce back problems, and foster better content. I believe that teachers working together - across schools - will produce higher quality content and more thoughtful lesson plans. Kelly Creasey underscores this point, "I know other teachers because of what they've posted on the Beyond Textbooks site. I've gotten e-mails from other teachers saying that they liked what I posted and wondering if I had anything else. I've started to form partnerships with other teachers, sending materials back and forth." If teachers are able to design their own content - every year - then they will likely avoid the trap of marching through the year to the "content coverage" drum beat.

References
Image used under CC license (link)

Write, Draw, Act, and Build

2009-06-21T20:30:00.000-04:00

We recently has a consultant conduct a professional development workshop focused on differentiated instruction. Our move to a block schedule next year will make it possible to drive deeper into topics and do more engaging activities. Trying to reach every student involves more flexibility in the medium used for activities, curriculum, and assessments.

We did an excellent activity where each teacher ranked our preference for doing an activity involving drawing, acting, writing, and building. First, we did a simple history activity where we had to use our least favorite medium. We were paired with other people of the same interest levels. Then, we repeated the activity using our most favorite medium. My least favorite was acting and my least favorite was building. It is interesting to note that the likes and dislikes were evenly spread. This means that when you pick one for your class, you are only addressing a minority of the students! It was a great way to empathize with a wider range of students. I also discovered mediums that my students may like, but I ignore because of my own personal preferences. Here are a few important ah-ha's:

During the activity that I liked least, our group planned quite a bit and was collaborative. It was the most fun for me. So, creativity starts with discomfort and time is necessary for creativity.
During the activity that I liked most, our group worked more individually. Even though we had a clearer vision before starting, we needed more time to "perfect" our project.
The writing activity was the most difficult to do collaboratively.
The medium of expression overwhelms content in the projects. This was easily apparent as the content was very trivial and the medium was solely responsible for our enthusiasm.
Personal interests and preferences were most easily integrated into the acting medium.
Several of the mediums actually encompass other mediums. For example, the writing group started with drawings first as a brainstorming tool. My acting group started with writing to script our project.

These techniques for differentiated instruction have the potential to make deeper connections within students. It is important to keep in mind that some students may still like the "sage on the stage" approach. Large groups can hurt productivity - even when the group likes the activity. Be careful to target groups of around four students. Also be careful when making groups with students of mixed ability levels. Sometimes it works to mix highly achieving students with lesser achieving students and sometimes it is better to have students with similar achievement levels.

Summary
The activity sensitized us to the anxiety that students potentially undergo in the class room. It also gave us a range of ideas for activities that may not always spring to mind.

Resources
Image used under Creative Commons (link)

Honesty as a 21st Century Skill

2009-06-18T15:00:00.002-04:00

I am still working on defining important 21st Century Skills given the changes in global demographics and increasing power of the Internet (see previous post). I came across an article in Long Island Newsday (link) that cited the results from a survey of 30,000 high school students. A whopping 64% of them admitted to cheating at least once in the previous year. Students become adults as seen in a recent poll where only 10% trusted large corporations (link). Honesty should be the first 21st Century skill that we teach our students. I don't blame them because students are a product of society and they have been exposed to examples of dishonesty or unethical behavior from sports, government, and business.

Role Models?
Baseball is still in the midst of a steroids scandal. Although there has been a few suspensions, it looks like baseball is not aggressively trying to restore its reputation. The message students probably hear is that it is acceptable to be dishonest when "everyone else is doing it". Baseball management has not been very aggressive unraveling the layers of deceit.

Business leadership has it fair share of dishonesty. It ranges from several Silicon Valley executives illegally repriced options to outright accounting fraud (link). Although not illegal, there are examples of CEOs feelling overly empowered:

Spending $1.2 million decorating their office (see itemized list)
Spending $50 million to buy a jet (see article) before public outcry quashed the deal. The ex-CEO of the same company still using company resources for personal junkets (see article) despite being the 843 riches man in the world (see list)

The government should be held to higher standards given that it represents people and partially sets the moral tone for the country. President Obama lost several cabinet appointees because they either didn't pay their taxes or had questionable business practices.

Sen. Tom Daschle (nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services) withdrew because he underpaid his taxes by $140,000 between 2005 and 2007 for a car service used with a business partner (see article).
Nancy Killefer (nominated as government performance officer) withdrew her nomination because she had a tax lien on her house for $1000 because she did not pay unemployment taxes for on hired help (see article).
Gov. Bill Richardson (nominated for Commerce Secretary) withdrew his nomination because he is under state investigation for corruption (see article). Secretary of Treasury nominee
Tim Geithner was confirmed as Secretary of Treasury despite owing $34,000 in back taxes (see article).

Why the Internet is Powerful

2009-06-16T19:36:00.005-04:00

Clay Shirky gave a brief speech that is available on TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design). TED was founded in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds with the goal of spreading new ideas. Their brief videos are always though-provoking and it is required viewing for any teaching thinking about 21st Century skills.

The main points are:

The Internet is the first innovation to support all forms of communications simultaneously: one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many. Past innovations were more narrowly focused (e.g., telephone, mail, e-mail, etc.)
The Internet is the first medium that is bidirectional. That is, consumers of information can also be producers of information. In his words, "it is like a newspaper coming with its own printing press". Earlier innovations were more broadcast-oriented (e.g., newspaper, radio, etc.)
The Internet is an all encompassing medium. Historically, the major technology and communication innovations were built as stand-alone products that had their own medium. Phones use wires and airwaves. Newspapers and magazines use paper. Movies use film and television uses airwaves. With the advent of the Internet, all forms of information can be part of the same digital medium. This means that the digital boundaries between different types of media are now porous. All types of digital information are just bits of data. Users can define their own unique combinations of media (called mashups). Companies that can provide the mapping links (meta data) between disparate types of information will be among the most powerful.

Clay Shirky also has a book called Here Comes Everybody (link)

Video Follows...

The Connected Classroom

2009-06-05T09:49:00.002-04:00

Students need to have technical skills commensurate with a world in which billions of people have computing devices. Suffice to say, information will become even more of a commodity than it is today. Successful students will understand how to find information, analyze it and collaborate with others. This will undoubtedly involve Web2.0 technologies. While there are pitfalls to introducing Web2.0 technologies to students, the benefits far exceed them.

Web2.0 websites are usually not dedicated to educational purposes. As a result, it is easy for students to stray from teacher-directed resources to potentially inappropriate resources. In the pre-Web2.0 world, teachers would give students URLs to relevant class resources. These websites were usually content-oriented with text, multimedia, or visual simulations. Today, teachers should leverage the power of Web2.0 and provide websites for collaboration and analysis.

Digital Scenario
Teacher coordinate resources across website using tags. Consider a teacher that uses free services from Flickr (photos), Slideshare (presentations), Youtube (videos), and Delicious (bookmarks). The teacher could tag the resources to make them easy to find for a particular curricular unit.

The "connected classroom" has multiple discussions occurring at the same time. The teacher has the ability to "tune" into any one of the discussion simply by projecting the relevant website on a screen or Smartboard. Consider having two Smartboards, or at least two LCD projectors. This way the teacher can lead one discussion and students can use the other projector to host peer discussions. The "connected classroom" will likely by dynamic with the teacher promoting important discussions so the whole class can partake. The dynamic nature of the classroom may also be chaotic and so different roles should be established, such as scribe, researcher, leader, editor, inquirer, etc. Students could take turns on different roles to learn an appreciation for all roles - a key aspect of successful collaboration.

a "back channel" chat for questions and secondary discussions (see note 1)
a collaborative document to capture and preserve findings
chat for students working together
informal polls for the teacher to check if students are understanding
online quizzes to ensure that students are listening and processing the lesson
concept maps for thematic overview and connections to other curriculum

In this classroom, there are several online discussions that increase the likelihood that students will connect. In addition, the teacher can use these to spot areas of confusion or areas that deserve primary attention. Once more of the class informal knowledge is captured digitally, then students may be able to work more independently outside of class time. This would lead to the possibility of learning at home instead of home being a place for homework.

Minor Pitfalls
Most web2.0 websites are free or very inexpensive (at least for now). Teachers and students create an account and provide an e-mail address. The vast majority of web2.0 websites are general purpose and not specifically setup for educational purposes. These risk is that students become bored and stray from the teacher-recommended content. The other potential risk is that another member of the website contacts the students directly. In both cases, these are excellent opportunities to teach students how to act appropriately online.

Conclusion
A connected classroom provides more ways to be engaged in class. It also provides more autonomy for students to take control of their learning - and potentially their own assessments. A more digital classroom also has the flexibility to extend beyond the physical classroom and class time. If students have an interest, then they can pick up and contribute to any of the discussion threads on their own.

References:
Image is from Alpha Galileo Research (link)
Note 1 - Twitter is a great back channel. Increase the use of peer comments by making students review other students' posts to make sure a question has not already have been answered. Hopefully, students will spark up conversations and not wait for the teacher to be the only one answering questions.

The Best Software You are Not Using

2009-06-02T10:34:00.005-04:00

Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) is an open-source e-learning tool that is well-suited to the a web2.0 classroom. It is capable of supporting a range of pedagogical approaches. It is also a hub for activities where teachers can see what other teachers are doing and adapt activities to their own class. Today, LAMS is a browser-based system, but it will likely run on iPhones in the near future.

The system provides frequent feedback to students - either automatically or from the teacher. Feedback and the workflow design allows students to move at their own pace and do optional tasks if they are moving faster than other students. The projects tasks can be easily adapted to actual students outcomes. Teachers may refine it with more or less tasks, reflection collaborations, or checkpoints.

LAMS provides the following great features:

create multi-step assignment using a visual tool - students see a map that shows the overall project and their progress
project steps can provide students different tasks choices - including optional tasks
groups can be created either randomly, from a list or based on the score or answer of a previous step
"branches" provide for individualized learning as sequences can change based on percent correct, number of attempts, or time to complete task
teachers can collect data from students via tables
"gates" are checkpoints where students must successfully complete a task before continuing
students get a private notebook for reflection
students can use websites within the LAMS browser, so it makes the websites seem integrated
system tracks which resources have been used by which students
students can build an online wiki, spreadsheet and mindmap, as well as, these other tools:

LAMS is an interesting curriculum tool. I have designed a few projects, but have not yet tried them in class. I am anxious to contact people who use it. Here is a list of users and a few reports evaluating LAMS (link)

Deja Vu

2009-06-01T13:09:00.004-04:00

I read the following post on Ms. Pohanka's blog called One Student at a Time (link). Everything she said was true of my own experience in Middle School. I am going to keep these observations in mind when I revamp my curriculum this summer. I couldn't say it any better, so I used her words.

1. They like to talk.

I think they like to hear the sound of their own voices. They will talk anytime, anywhere about anything. If they raise their hands, ask first what they are going to say. If not, you may be sorry.

2. They rarely are still.

They give new meaning to the phrase “movers and shakers”. They can somehow climb into a chair and sit in positions that I didn’t know were even possible. Don’t expect them to sit still for very long; it won’t happen.

3. They eat strange food for breakfast.

Seriously, a Mountain Dew Slurpee? I’m not kidding.

4. They are opinionated.

They love to argue…about anything. They will need reminders that they don’t have to argue everything that everyone says. If you give them a debate to do as a project in class, they will put that to good use and will learn everything so they can argue.

5. They all have amazing and often unseen talents.

Fencing, horseback riding, soccer, music, acting, and more are all things that they can do, and do well. Get to know what they like to do outside of the classroom and you will be shocked at their wide range of interests and talents.

6. They are compassionate.

They will ask how your weekend was; they will notice a slight limp and ask how you hurt yourself. They remember everything you tell them about yourself and will bring it up later to your delight.

7. They are 21st Century Learners

They get it. They love to collaborate and work together. They get that it makes sense to work to each persons strengths and get the best out of everyone they can. They aren’t afraid of anything you can throw at them that is new. They will figure it out and make it work.

8. They will make you a better teacher if you choose to rise to the occasion.

Teaching them is hard if you expect them to be just like all of your other classes. They aren’t like all of your other classes. If you try to put them into that mold, it won’t work. They will drive you crazy. But, if you rise to the occasion and take the time to figure out what works for them, you won’t be sorry. You will be a better teacher.

References
Classroom picture from Flickr (link)

Chief Learning Officer

2009-05-19T22:18:00.000-04:00

Is it time for education to take a cue from the organizations that hire the students we teach? Is it time for schools to create a Chief Learning Officer (CLO)? Businesses understand the importance of intellectual capital as a critical resource. Towards that end, they have created the new executive position of CLO and as of two years ago, about one third of large corporations had a CLO. The significance is that the new role is on par with other top leadership positions (e.g., CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, and CMO).

CLO Role
The role of a CLO in an educational setting is to stay current on research and help teachers implement it in their lesson plans and classroom practices. The CLO will be on the pulse of important 21st century skills. A CLO will help craft the professional growth and development blueprint, but must also have a direct and meaningful impact on the day-to-day activities of teachers and students. The CLO needs to lay the groundwork for new ideas. Refined ideas will make adoption easier and more likely.

Virtual Classes
A school CLO will become increasingly important as the education takes place more outside of the traditional classroom. Online classes and virtual environments are gaining popularity because of their convenience outside of traditional classrooms. They make it possible for students to take specialized classes and learn on their own schedule. It also makes better use of physical space. For example, students could take different classes while sharing a common classroom and teacher.

PLN Builder
Teachers need a Personal Learning Network (PLN) to grow professionally and take full advantage of the boom in social networking technologies (web2.0). If classes become more asynchronous, then it will be equally important for students to become more autonomous by growing their own PLN. The PLNs that students develop can be refined in successive grades and eventually used in support of a job. There is a notion that the best jobs will be those which cannot be outsourced to low-costs emerging nations or automated to a computer. This means that value-added analysis and creativity (nee design) will be paramount skills for 21st century students. PLNs are important and CLOs can help teachers and students build productive PLNs.

Summary
Schools NEED a CLO to bridge the gap between emerging academic research findings and classroom practice. There has been a great deal discovered about how people learn over the past fifteen years. I would bet that not much of this has made it into classroom practice. Most teachers do not have the time to stay current with educational research. Even if they did, it would take even more time to reboot their classroom.

Bottom Line: Adding an educational CLO would have a significant and favorable impact on teaching practices. Their influence would extend beyond teachers to students in to foster more autonomy to be Lifelong Learners. At the very least, the CLO should help teacher relinquish some of their content monopoly in favor of helping students developing their own PLNs.

References
(1) Bersin & Associates (link)

21st Century Students

2009-04-16T14:56:00.017-04:00

What skills are necessary for students in the 21st Century?

I am still wrestling with this question about what skills are necessary for students and our country to be successful in the 21st century. Even though I love technology, the necessary skills will not solely be technology-oriented. In fact, I am learning that traditional skills like reading, writing, arguing, researching and collaborating will play a prominent role. Some of these have been around since the dawn of time and may need updating to be useful in media-rich and globalized world. For now, I research these skills and try to think about their relative importance. Below are a few of the more interesting resources (including this link). In a future post, I will take a more definitive stance on 21st century student skills.

John Monroe, Phd from University of Minnesota has a brief overview

From Information to Innovative Knowledge: Experiences from an Open Seminar

View more presentations from John Moravec.

Video of new school in NYC - similar to Science Learning Academy in Philly

Presentation about Important 21st Century Skills

21st Century Skills - Institute Day 2009

View more presentations from Andrew Kohl.

Globalization Requires a Language other than English

Just a Reminder about our Responsibility

source: http://www.boxoftricks.net/?p=863

Website for 21st Century Student Research (link)

Where will I find the time?

2009-04-05T21:03:00.004-04:00

Teachers are pressed for time during the school year. Strategic projects are postponed until the summer. On a side note, this is likely why technology integration done during the year shows mixed results and is project-oriented instead transformational. "Finding more time" is only possible through improved efficiency. This means using social networking and web2.0 tools to work smarter and faster. Most importantly, make sure that you have realistic expectations

Just as technology alone will not improve teaching and learning, PLNs are not the "aspirin" solution to our system's professional development headaches. (source)

For example, why search Google for websites? Chances are that there are teacher blogs and related Delicious accounts with high-quality and proven resources. Why search Google for an images? You probably want a collect of images from a website like Flickr. Why just search for images when you probably want full-blown presentation slides with explanations. In this case, venture to Slideshare or Slideboom. Perhaps you want to zoom into a picture in great detail - try gigapan for ultra high-resolution images.

Why settle for weblinks and slides, when you really want a lesson plan and rubic? This is why you invest time creating and pruning your PLN. Ask people in your social network (Twitter, Classroom2.0, etc.) where to find proven lesson plans, projects, and rubrics. Make sure that you have people from different time zones in your PLN. Ask a question before bed and find responses waiting for you in the morning.

Web2.0 tools are great for networking with other teachers and finding great ideas. They have the potential to save lots of time. Once you become comfortable with them building your PLN, then stretch your mind and try a few in your classroom.

Just as technology alone will not improve teaching and learning, PLNs are not the "aspirin" solution to our system's professional development headaches.

Me and my Personal Learning Network

2009-03-08T16:27:00.002-04:00

Your Personal Learning Network (PLN) is way to collaborate with people that you don't see everyday. It is a way to become more productive by leveraging the knowledge of others to avoid reinventing the wheel. My PLN was dormant for years and has blossomed over the past year with the explosion in Web2.0 technologies (see picture below). For years, there has been a saying in the business world that "it is not what you know, it is who you know". This notion is at the core of PLNs. You will know when your PLN is working when are addicted to it and must you check it several times a day. With PLNs, you generally get what you give. The more you interact with others, the more valuable will become as a resource for others. These are important skills for 21st Century Digital Literacy and you will eventually use these same PLN tools to communicate with your students.

To start your PLN, try the following:

Create a blog and update it at least once a month. Once a week is even better.
Register your blog at technorati.com
Create a Twitter account and follow smart teachers
Find other teachers' blogs using Bloglines
Search for other teachers' blogs using Delicious tags (link)
Search for other teachers' blogs using Google (link)
List of teacher blogs (link)
Another list of teacher blogs (link)
Yet another list of teacher blogs (link)
OK, one last list of teacher blogs (link)
Search for other teachers' blogs using Google’s blog search (link)
Once you find a relevant teacher blog, Introduce yourself and post a comment.
Create a Delicious account and store your bookmarks. I also use Diigo, but it is more advanced.
Use Delicious to find teachers with good web resources and add them to your network. Searching Delicious tags like this.
You can also find blogs through Delicious as most teachers list their blog. Once you find a great bookmark, see what other users have bookmarked. It is easy to spot other teachers by the way they tag bookmarks. Visit their Delicious account and see if they list their blog.
Visit my bookmarks.
Search Google for teacher blogs in your subject area. Use a detailed search like this.
Google also has a directory of blogs here.
There are also blog directories like this one, this one, this one, and this one.
Once you find a few great teachers, check out their "Blog Rolls" of teachers that they value,
Look for social networks setup for teachers using Nings. Teachers who are part of these social networks usually have a badge shown on their blog. See mine along the right-hand side of my blog.
Fight information overload by using an RSS reader like Google Reader, Pageflakes, or Netvibes to aggregate blog posting, bookmarks and social network conversations.
When building your PLN, don't forget about the potential of the college you attended or professional organizations.

When I have a few minutes, I will see what's brewing with my PLN. I have work hard at the care and feeding of my PLN so that I can ask a question and get a response in a few hours. The beauty of a PLN is that I don't have to know who to ask - I just ask my whole network.

See the Tweets of people I follow for what's hot and look for new resources.
Review the latest blog post headlines from my blog roll and read interesting posts. Sometimes just the title gives me an idea.
Review the discussions on my Nings and add comments. Keeps me ahead of the curve.
Review new bookmarks and look for people with lots of relevant bookmarks. I rarely need to Google anything because my PLN tends to find resources well before I need them and profile them.
Think about ideas for a new blog post. I usually have several unfinished and unpublished blog posts. This acts like an informal to-do list.
Search for conferences to attend and conferences with video feeds for the sessions. You can view most conference presentations online.
Search for professional development resources. I like to know what other schools and other teachers are learning.

Image used under Creative Commons License from this URL

Engaging the Digital Generation

2009-03-02T14:23:00.004-05:00

Most of us have seen videos about how the current generation is very different because of their exposure to media. Here is another video that proposes a few ideas for teacher to embrace technology (classroom ideas start at 4:30).

Grade Grubbers Unite

2009-02-19T13:29:00.006-05:00

A recent New York Times article discussed that students are expect loftier grades for doing a baseline of work. My recollection of high school was that average performance warranted a C and more effort was required to get a B and an A was rarefied air. The article points to a rise in grade expectations and attributes it to several factors including: a growing sense of entitlement, parental pressure, competition among family members and peers and achievement anxiety.

A different perspective is more critical of the educational system fosters the notion that the level of effort is equivalent to the quality of work. And within this system, students figure out how to be "ultra-efficient in test preparation" and find ways to cut corners. One way to combat this is authentic teaching that forces students to do more critical thought. Consider less well-defined problems that cause students to wrestle with the problem by redefining it and iterating their work. Less well-defined problems are causing teachers to consider including design in the curriculum (look for a future post about design).

Addendum: I found this article after I posted this blog. It has 9 reasons why grades are often in conflict with effort and learning.

Report card photo used under Creative Commons license from this URL.

The Twitch Generation

2009-02-05T23:11:00.018-05:00

I teach middle school students and they seem impulsive and not always willing to struggle with a problem before asking for help. I could not remember enough about my early teen years to know if I was the same way or this generation is different. The dearth of media and technology make it hard to concentrate and focus when "multitasking" opportunities abound. It is important to understand the Twitch Generation in order to properly engage them and design appropriate accommodations. Moreover, the first step in most instructional design models is student background and prior knowledge, such as media preferences. How people think may to be influenced by the types of media they most frequently use (McLuhan, 1964; Ong, 1928).

A recent article in the Educational Technology Research & Development Journal (February 2009) looked at the cognitive tempos of students today and thirty years ago. Over the past decade, the amount of time students spend on the computer or watching television during their teen years has grown to over 4000 hours (Cennamo, Saveneye, & Smith, 1998; Cowan, 1988; Healy, 1998; Lang, 1994; Lang & Basil, 1998; Lang, Bolls, Potter, & Kawahara, 1999; Lang, Zhou, Schwartz, Bolis, & Potter, 2000; Prensky, 2001; Tapscott, 1997, 1998).

The large amount of digital media may cause the brain to develop differently and lead to more impulsive behavior. Doman and Shichida suggest that humans naturally and progressively rely less on the right brain hemisphere from age five to early teens. The left-brain development is responsible for high-level cognition and perception. If this maturity is hindered and an imbalance begins to exist, then there is a tendency towards impulsive behavior. Restak (2003) suggests that new imaging technology and psychopharmacology provide proof that media-centric youths are exhibiting this uneven brain development and a growing population is being diagnosed with attention deficits and hyperactivity. Instead of retarding existing brain functions, it is possible that the Twitch generation is more fully developing existing latent capabilities.

Cognitive Load Theory describe the load placed on memory by various intrinsic and extrinsic factors that need to managed during the knowledge acquisition process Intrinsic loads relates to the inherent difficulty of the task, while extrinsic load related to outside influences that interfere with the learning environment (e.g., music, interruptions, etc.). Another way to look at cognitive load and memory is by the type of information being remembered. Gist memory relates to the essence or main idea, while verbatim memory relates to recall of specific facts.

Kenny (2002) confirmed earlier studies by Sweller (1988, 1994, 1999) that younger students remember the gist better than the detail. A short series of 1,300 pictures representing major events of American history was shown in chronological order to three groups of teens. The group that viewed the videos at the fastest pace (approximately three pictures per second) tended to remember significantly more of the context of the video than those that saw it at the two slower speeds.

Cognitive tempo is the balance between speed and accuracy the the trade-off is more about personal orientation than intelligence (Bridgeman, 1980; Messer, 1970; Wright & Vliestra, 1977). There are four classifications:

impulsive: those who sacrifice accuracy for speed
reflective: those who sacrifice speed for accuracy
slow inaccurate: those who sacrifice neither
fast accurate: those who sacrifice both

Research shows that impulsive-reflective behaviors mitigate with age (Doman, 1984; Shichida, 1994; Waring, Farthing & Kidder-Ashley, 1999) and cognitive tempo can be changed through training (Fletcher, 1993; Greenwald, 1972). Carin and Cammock (1984) administered the MFFT-20 test to early teens about twenty yeqars ago. Participants in this study did not have nearly the amount of music, music videos or face-paced games that today's youth enjoy.
The Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT) participants are shown a series of pictures and are asked to select one of the six pictures that match an original picture. Researchers recorded how long it took the participants to make their first choice and the total number of errors they made before a correct choice.

The current generation was better at the MFFT-20 experiment in that the median time required to make the first choice was reduced by about 48% and the median number of errors was reduced by about 32%. The brain is benefiting from being bombarded with more multimedia. On the other hand, there are marked differences between the cognitive tempo of the two test groups. The current generation has three times as many "impulsive" students as twenty years ago and the number of "reflective" students declined by about 10%.

Bottom Line: Using technology has forced the brain to perform "faster" than it did twenty years ago. Internet usage also helps keep the mind sharp - similar to crossword puzzles and Sudoku (see article). On the other hand, the brain is taught to be more "impulsive". A recent article discusses how befriending a computer may lead to less social skills in real settings. Schools need to combat this with tasks that demand full attention for longer than a few minutes.

Social Networks in Education

2009-02-04T22:43:00.002-05:00

The world is changing and there are small signs every day. The number of videos watched is up 45% this year. NASA embraces web2.0 and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) is looking for water on the moon. It has a Facebook and Twitter account to keep interested people informed. The Pope Benedict XVI and the U.S. Congress have Youtube accounts. The Dalai Lama and the Pope use Twitter.

Teacher face a major challenge embracing a more media-rich and collaborative world. How do we encourage students to pay attention in class when they have social networking resources (AIM, Facebook, etc.) at their fingertips? We need to create engaging lesson plans where idel chat and tagging pictures is less interesting.

Thinking about Video

2009-02-02T20:18:00.003-05:00

Currently, every student in my technology classes learns a curriculum of my own creation. The curriculum teaches important 21st century literacy skills and is challenging. On the other hand, it is a single curriculum and does not cater to individual students. I would like to offer three different curricula in the same class to better engage different types of interests. For example, I could teach basic programming (Scratch), analysis (Excel) and creativity (Turtleart or Photoshop). The big stumbling block is how to teach three courses simultaneously. The answer is video.

There is research that shows students lose nothing by watching videos instead of attending live lectures (see full article). The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee studied 5,000 students over two years. Students who watched the videos 12% better on the same cumulative test than students who took the traditional course. The outperformance of the video watchers came despite the fact that video learners had generally lower grades than the lecture attendees. Moreover, the online model was particularly successful for disadvantaged or underprepared students

On a side note, I also saw a video at EduCon that showed a math teacher having students watch a 10-15 minute instructional video for homework. Class time was reserved for students doing problems and collaborating. Students seemed to like the video idea for homework because it fit nicely into their world of multimedia and multitasking. If I can master video in my technology class, maybe this s worth a shot.

Trend Watch 2009

2009-01-30T14:53:00.007-05:00

The annual Horizon Report (pdf version or online version) is a collaborative effort between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). Each year, the report identifies and describes six areas of emerging technology likely to have a significant impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression in higher education within three adoption horizons: a year or less, two to three years, and four to five years.
The areas of emerging technology cited for 2009 are:
• Mobiles (i.e., mobile devices)
• Cloud computing
• Geo-everything (i.e., geo-tagging)
• The personal web
• Semantic-aware applications
• Smart objects

Gary Natriello in his paper, Imagining, Seeking, Inventing: the Future of Learning
and the Emerging Discovery Networks, identifies ten important education trends:

learning is becoming more diverse
learning is becoming more contextual
learning is becoming less discipline bound
learning is moving outside of institutional settings
learning is coming to span professional and institutional sectors
learning is moving beyond and between nation states
learning is moving online
learning is moving beyond humans to machines
learning is moving to machine/human blends
learning is becoming less solitary and more interactive

Design is Important

2009-01-22T21:31:00.014-05:00

Can't understand why younger kids love Facebook? Check out the video below about the potential collaboration between the current leaders of the right- and left-hand side of the brain. Paola Antonelli is New York MOMA's curator and she talks about how scientists and designers will work more together.

My background is firmly planted in the math and science world (left brain). My right brain awoke last year when my school attended the NAIS conference in New York City and Daniel Pink was the keynote speaker. Gary Natriello's Learning Opportunity design course at Teachers College has strengthened my belief that design is important. A recent article (link) hammers home the point in monetary terms.

What is Design?
Design has traditionally been a pedagogy in the arts, but many of its characteristics have relevancy in other subject areas. Design involves solving ill-formed problems, where there is not one ultimate answer. Rather, there are different possible solutions based on problem constraints. Design is iterative and "wrong" designs are not penalized. Designers are optimist. They want to take feedback and quickly create another iteration of their solution. It is not unusual for designers to work on a problem that changes - sounds authentic and similar to the world we live in. In designing for interaction by Dan Saffer, notes that interaction design is about behavior and facilitating interactions between people and products and services. Further, he points out the important attributes as: Motion, Space, Time, Appearance, Texture, and Sound. Saffer further defines interaction design as:

Why is Design Difficult?
Design is difficult because it is more art than science. Designers must iterate their work dozens and maybe hundreds of times. Revisions sometimes foster additional changes in the original project goals. In addition, larger projectscan undergo changes in constraints, such as budget, time, and social behavior. Some products and services are poorly designed and don't have don't have sustainability because they serve a purpose for a particular time and/or context. Moreover, technology frequently changes and sustainability can be achieved by not aligning with any medium in particular.

Why is Design Important?
The world is shrinking thanks to rapid improvements in computers and communications. Web2.0 tools are springing up daily and computer applications are migrating to cell phones and blackberries. Globalization increases market potential (consumers) and labor pools (workers). More and more manufacturing and business activities are being standardized and commoditized. More and more activities become candidates for automation or outsourcing. This means that the product intangibles will likely become more important in the success or failure of a product or service. Design is all about these intangibles related to customer experience. Design involves finding a solution, but not necessarily THE solution. It is well-suited for ill-formed problems, complex problems and problems that change while you are solving them. Design also involves collaboration and rapid iterations or prototypes. In short, design is an important 21st century literacy.

Education in a Web2.0 World

2009-01-06T16:46:00.012-05:00

There is growing commentary about the potential of social networking tools in education. The promise is to elevate students' current focus on cryptic text messages and pictures to something more intellectual and productive. I believe that online collaboration and extended professional networks will be an important employment skill. The key is to use social networking as a meaningful part of the curriculum where non-academic chatter seems dull by comparison. The main challenge is that students have a five-year headstart on teachers.

Brad Ovenell-Carter's blog (A stick in the Sand) has several interesting ideas about Networked Schools posed in early January.

The National School Board Association did a survey of 1000 parents and 1000 students about their online habits. It had several interesting data points underscoring the importance of teaching with en eye towards collaboration and networking skills:

"Nine- to 17-year olds report spending as much time using social networking services and Web services as they spend watching television."

"Almost 60 percent of students who use social networking talk about education topics online and, surprisingly, more than 50 percent talk specifically about schoolwork."

"Nonconformists - students who step outside of online safety and behavior rules - are significantly heavier users of social networking sites than other students."

"Most of the problems students and parents report are similar to the types of problems typically associated with any other media (television or popular music)."

Will Richardson's article in the November 2008 issue of ASCD's Educational Leadership magazine makes several interesting points:

"Web2.0 may be the large technological shift in history that's being driven by children."

"As author John Seely Brown (Brown & Adler, 2008) points out, these shifts demand that we move our concept of learning from a supply-push model of building up an inventory of knowledge in the students' heads to a demand-pull approach that requires students to own their learning processes and pursue learning, based on their needs of the moment."

"Sharing is the fundamental building block for building connections and networks; it may take the form of ruminations on life in a blog; photos of the latest family picnic on Flickr, or discussion notes students post to a classroom wiki for others to read and contribute to."

New Years Thoughts

2009-01-01T14:31:00.006-05:00

I had a very relaxing and productive school break. I managed to stay away from the computer for a few days at a time. When I did venture online, I quickly discovered many new and exciting ideas thanks to my Personal Learning Network (PLN). Here are a few recommendations for other teachers for the New Year:

I am going to continue to build and prune my PLN. It is a powerful resource and the most efficient way to find new ideas for your classes. My productivity comes from using social media for interactions instead of e-mail and Google searches.
I need to review ideas for using the web for teaching. Find out which are acceptable to my school and profile them for other teachers.
Review my Blogroll and other important sources of ideas. For example, here is a list of 100 class ideas "if you are willing to put down the textbook for a day"
Investigate Diigo and how it may replace or compliment Delicious and learn about Yahoo Pipes.

How People Learn

2008-12-16T15:02:00.002-05:00

Here are five ways that technology can be used to enhance learning:

bringing exciting curricula based on real-world problems into the classroom
create an active environment by providing scaffolds and tools
giving students and teachers more opportunities for feedback, reflection and revision
building local and global communities that include teachers, administrators, students, parents, and practicing scientists
expanding opportunities for teacher learning

Source: How People Learn by Bransford, Brown, and Cocking

Rethinking Professional Development

2008-12-15T22:26:00.005-05:00

Interesting thoughts about professional development from http://pd20.wiki.hoover.k12.al.us

"If we don't change the way we teach teachers, teachers won't change the way they teach."

Profound Thought

2008-06-30T23:54:00.001-04:00

With each new generation of technology, and with each stage of technological expansion into pristine environments, human beings have fewer alternatives and become more deeply immersed within technological consciousness. We have a harder time seeing our way out. Living constantly in side an environment of our own invention, reacting soley to things we ourselves hqave created, we are essentially living inside our own minds. Where evolution was once an interactive process between human beings and a natural, unmediated world, evolution is now an interaction between human beings and our own artifacts

--Jerry Mander--

About Me

2000-01-01T10:36:00.002-05:00

This page is not a real post, but rather background information about me.

I am a math teacher and technology coordinator at a private school in Connecticut (link). I am a lifelong learner and love keeping pace with new research in the areas of pedagogy and curriculum design. My own teaching style emphasizes project-based learning and cognitive apprenticeship.

In my "spare" time, I learn from my Personal Learning Network and take grad classes at Teachers College. Web 2.0 is a major technological shift that has important ramifications in education. It is rare when teachers can use the same tools that students use outside of school for classwork. It is equally rare when we are only 12-24 months behind the students in terms of technical understanding. Teachers can close this gap or it can widen. By the way, Web2.0 is low-cost or free. I also have a wiki with lots of EdTech resources (link)

Teaching is a second career for me after fifteen years on Wall Street. These years taught me three important lessons:

the need to work long hours and out hustle others
the importance of keeping your customers happy
the importance of evolving your skills and not letting them atrophy