Refreshed and renewed
Boy, the school year is almost over and it was a mix of great things and frustrations. Taking the summer to renew and reflect about how to step it up next year and incorporate seamlessly the technology that is required for 21st century learning is what I am determined to do. I am at a school that doesn’t do this with any regularity, but I need to press forward. Any good ideas or examples out there? Please share! I want to blog, skype, and wiki… let’s talk about how this looks in a classroom. I have collaborated with a few great educators and we have big dreams…
Twisted Perceptions
I was quite amused by Don Tapscott’s depiction of today’s generation. At first glance many educators would likely agree – would you? Kids these days… Easy to say, huh? Great for the self esteem, too. We are quickly counting them out and throwing in the towel of the future.
So what is behind the generational disconnect? Why can’t we see their potential? Could it be that we are asking them to do the same things in the same way that we did many years ago? Do generals tell their soldiers to follow the same strategy and use the tools used a generation ago because they are not comfortable with the weapons of today? We have an educational arsenal at our fingertips that we aren’t using. What a waste of talent!
Where’s the new learning?
Courtesy Google Images
I have been taking departmental learning walks, examining teaching and learning. In my position as Director of Middle and Secondary Instruction, I have access to eight schools and probably about 450 classrooms. Because I truly enjoy being in classrooms, this represents a significant upgrade from my days as a principal.
But alas I am disheartened by what I see in several classrooms, particularly at the middle school level. Teachers aren’t teaching, they are re-teaching. Kids are being exposed to stuff they already know. They sit through what the teacher perceives is effective use of technology (a PowerPoint presentation), elbow on desk and chin in the palm of their hand. Are they even awake? If not, who would blame them? I was in 11 middle school math rooms last week, and not one invloved new learning. The kids talked about learning the concepts in previous years. Even where kids were learning a concept or skill for the first time, the amount of practice was overkill. (Why do kids need to find the percent of a number 35 different times? And why in the world would a teacher not connect that concept to a life-skill, like determining how much Circuit City had marked up their merchandise to realize only a 30% reduction before they announced that it was 50% off?)
Surprisingly, high school was a different experience. (I say “surprisingly”–my middle school bias is showing. I always assumed high school teachers took the “stand and deliver” approach, but they are proving me wrong.) In a pre-calc class, kids were collaborating on problem-solving. They were allowed to explain concepts to one another. Sure the teacher circulated and helped when asked, but it really was more of a student-centered classroom. In an Intro to Algebra II class (a decidedly different type of student from those in the pre-calc class), kids were working out problems and again collaborating on the process. It’s hard to come up with a real-life example of finding the value of variables in two different equations, but even with the process-type task they were talking through with one another trying to get clarification on the concept.
My point is this: We don’t have time to keep waiting for certain teachers, certain levels, or certain content areas to catch up with the 21st century. We need to make a significant shift now. In my next blog post, I will describe a visit to a local university’s engineeering department. What I saw put me in awe, but what I heard from the professor and students inspired me. Perhaps others will be surprised to learn what a major university is looking for in their engineering students…
Defining in the 21st Century
Vocabulary assignments should evolve with the times.
This past week marked the beginning of my last semester of graduate course assignments. One of the courses I’m taking is EDUC 295, Quantitative Methods II. The week’s assignments were somewhat typical – reading the online lecture, participating in asynchronous discussion, and reading online articles and textbook chapters. Next came an assignment that at first glance looked quite typical, but ended up as anything but traditional –
Our small group, consisting of 5 students (located geographically across the country and in the Middle East), was to come up with definitions for a list of 13 research terms. We were asked to define the terms in our own words. It sounded somewhat traditional, I thought, but with a collaborative flair. Once I looked at the terms at hand, however, I was surprised to find they didn’t sound familiar. Surely the text or article I just read would assist. Maybe the words wouldn’t be in bold, but certainly they were discussed. My first reaction was that I missed something – was my mind wandering while I read all about null hypothesis?
I quickly realized that no, the definitions weren’t provided for us in our readings or through Dr. Watkins’ lecture. Individually, we had to call upon a combination of research skills and web literacy — using multiple reliable sources to come up with a definition that made sense to us. Then came collaboration, which involved synthesizing our findings into one negotiated, concise, and clear definition. Not quite the “copy these definitions” task so often assigned.
What a strong foundation to start the semester! Assuming his role as “guide on the side”, Dr. Watkins had us work together within the content to accomplish the goal (becoming comfortable with the research terms). Sure, Dr. Watkins could have handed us his definitions to study, but how much would have copying and memorizing helped vs. the constructing and combining we accomplished? I’d love to see such assignments more in K-12 education. It is just one simple way to give more depth to content vocabulary.
Photo courtesy Visual Thesaurus
One Step Forward, Two Back
Ok, I am feeling trapped in a 19th century system while trying to allow 21st century learning to happen. Is it because students don’t know how to “do” 21st century learning? Is it because they are so ingrained in a system that is outdated and they just go through the motions? I see glimpses of learning – like today when we were analyzing the European Union. Students had researched information about whether the candidate countries meet the criteria the EU has set and I had “researchers” ready for questions that would come up. Students were debating ideas like GDP, economic stability based on what they were reading, and as we needed more information the researcher would look up facts like literacy rate, etc. I really felt like students were informed, interested, and were able to enjoy the debate. Technology was not used just so students could use the internet but rather they were integrating the technology into their learning – as naturally as they text, IM, etc. It was a great day and I felt as if it was truly student learning taking place. I was the facilitator, they were learning from each other. It is not like this every day and I am continually asking why. And as the bell was ringing and students were grabbing their books and turning computers off, I wondered how to fit this type of learning into my 48 minute schedule? Why can’t the educational system focus on meeting student needs in the 21st century instead of focusing on standards of learning and testing? I know we need standards but do we need to teach to a test that a group of people who are not in classrooms have developed into a multiple choice test? When do we use multiple choice tests in life? I realize these are pretty random thoughts but I don’t think our system is working and as we look to work out the budget problems I hope we don’t lose focus on our progress. We must move forward – we cannot afford two steps back.
Being Bold
Walking into my classroom of 8th graders having them excitedly tell me about their holiday activities – Guitar Hero, playing videos, posting You Tube videos, and how many texts were flashed around the vacation world, I am struck that these kids now have to “power down” to get back to the traditional school day. Oh, I am one of the lucky ones who can provide laptops to my students and I provide a project driven class, but it within the context of 45 minute classes that are rotated around 8 periods a day. It is not the fault of the school – I am also fortunate to work at a supportive and collaborative building. But how do we get to the point where students are excited about education and don’t have to “power down” in order to get back to the traditional classroom? Listening to Daniel Pink, Alan November, Tony Wagner speak about the need for educational transformation and what our kids will need for future success, I am determined to join others in trying to be a force of change. But I also see 8th graders going through the motions of school. In my annual unit of Holocaust/Anne Frank/Europe students are usually excited about finding the right picture, quote, and music to portray their own unique digital story. They love the process including choice, voice, and being able to share their stories. This year I have not seen the same excitement. It is what Tara was experiencing and I think part of it is that this unit is not enough anymore. I need to reflect and ask critical questions about how I can get this unit even more student centered than it already is. I won’t give up. I am passionate about the need for all of us to “get it.” Our kids depend on us “getting it” – that we need to transform education into 21st Century learning. I will begin to be bold.
Reviving Curiosity
naturally curious
“Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly.” Arnold Edinborough
Curiosity is healthy and should be fostered in our classrooms. According to Sugata Mitra’s Hole in the Wall experiments, children, motivated by curiosity, will instruct themselves. Two additional caveats are that the children have to be in groups and adult intervention must be lifted.
I hoped to catch a glimpse of that same natural, refreshing curiosity as I worked with an 8th grade English class just before our holiday break. The students were working on a project and were asked to find 1940s music on the web to get a sense of the times and to use as a reference for their project. Apparently, each student had a list of such period music from prior research, so they weren’t starting from scratch. Surely students allowed to look for music on the web would respond with interest.
Instead, they seemed frustrated immediately and when they realized they would have to dig deep to find a particular audio clip, they gave up almost as instantly. They wanted the formula, or better yet, the exact answer (go to website XYZ). After searching for five minutes, a few students even told me their music was not out there. “So you mean to tell me in 5 minutes, you’ve seen it all?” I questioned. This reminded me of the commercial several years back about “finishing” the Internet.
Disappointed by their lack of initiative and curiosity, my first reaction was to blame it on their lack of perseverance. You know, kids just want to take the easy way out. Next I wondered if they just didn’t know where to begin (I would gladly help them if this was the case), but they didn’t want tips on how to search; they wanted the url of the exact website.
I began to wonder — Have we as educators, actually blocked natural curiosity? Are we enabling students, and possibly perpetuating the problem? Students are used to seeking the immediate and single correct answer. How did they get this way? They were trained – Yes, by us. Think about the textbook questions often assigned – definitions, short answer, and multiple choice. Quick responses – the kind that are either right or wrong. Many students have experienced this since their first years of school. So when we suddenly ask them to go off and explore, it doesn’t feel natural and they are disoriented– at first. We have actually squelched their curiosity.
The next day began with my pep talk about searching for the music, including reminders that patience would be needed. Holding strong to my refusal to give them any specific sites, I watched the results. They came through. Brandon was successful at finding his music first. He began to share tips with the others. It seemed that once the sharing began, the curiosity and confidence kicked in. I was relieved, but it was way too close of a call…
How can we foster curiosity in classrooms? Create an atmosphere in which the process is just as important as the final answer or product. Let them have the freedom to discover the “answer” and understand there is more than one way to get there and sometimes more than one destination. Lift adult intervention and allow students to share their discoveries with their peers, as Brandon did. It may not seem natural at first, but don’t give up. Don’t stifle curiosity, encourage it.
Are we nearing the Tipping Point?
I started reading Gladwell’s new book Outliers this week, and as usual he shares his thought-provoking research in what is almost a story-telling style. But I got to thinking about the first Gladwell book, the one that made me a fan: The Tipping Point. It’s a great book and a must-read. Without going into too much detail, the basic premise is that there is an event or a moment in time when a certain change is unstoppable, and all things up to that point contribute to the momentum. So as I think about our economy, the government bailout of The Big Three, and massive cuts to public eduction on our doorstep, I wonder: are we nearing a tipping point? Consider Friedman’s contention in The World is Flat, that any job that at its basic element is routine can be “off-shored” and done by workers in countries where their populace is being prepared for this work, and at a much lower cost. Consider also Wagner’s reminder that due to sheer numbers (population), there are more honor students in China than we have students. Are we nearing what my parents would refer to as the point of no return–or what Gladwell calls the tipping point? Holiday travel afforded me a lot of thinking time while trekking across the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Imagine what schools could do with the money being given to banks, financial insitutions, and the auto industry. We could get webcams so our kids could use Skype on individual laptops. We could abandon textbooks and subscribe to relevant websites that aren’t obsolete when the kids access them. Maybe we could even purchase a real statistics software package like SPSS that our kids could use to input real-time local data to record, analyze, and report and draw conclusions from the trends they see. But wait–we have the same problem the auto industry no doubt faces as it tries to “reinvent itself”: those on the front lines have to get it. Teachers have to know why a shift in this direction is absolutely crucial right now. Are we ready? Can we count on “Yankee Ingenuity” to save us once more? Or is Yankee ingenuity a 20th Century concept?
The Sky’s the Limit with Skype
connecting classrooms
We’re willing to pay thousands for computers, interactive whiteboards, the latest software, document cameras, and digital video cameras. Yet, how much are we willing to pay to connect classroom to classroom, school to school, district to district, state to state, or even country to country? What is the value of being able to interview content experts or authors, conduct discussions or debates, or collaborate in real-time?
We did it today. Once my friend and I each bought a $50 web cam and installed Skype, we connected from school to school with ease. I was thoroughly impressed by the clarity of the audio and video feed. All you need is free Skype software, Internet access, a microphone and speaker (the web cam is optional to send video along with the audio). I just used the speaker from the laptop and the microphone from the web cam.
Imagine the possibilities! Connecting and collaborating are key 21st century skills. It struck me as odd that this tool has not been marketed more often for education. And I wondered where I’ve been. How could I have missed this? I really haven’t heard much more about Skype since I returned from the VSTE Conference in February. Yet, as Alan November reminded us at the VASCD Conference, we need to teach students to connect with real people across the curriculum.
So is $50 worth connecting classrooms of kids from around the world? I’d say so! In the 21st century, we can’t afford not to…
Learning Walks:December 10, 2008
I spent a half a day today doing Learning Walks in one of our high schools. My Career and Technical Ed (CTE) Coordinator and I spent time in several CTE classes, talking to kids and questioning teachers. What I came away with is that we can learn a lot from CTE teachers.
The first teacher we visited is a tech ed teacher. He has his kids work in teams problem-solving designs. They huddle around a computer screen creating simulations, performing strength tests and determing the minimum thickness of metal or aluminum they can use on whatever they are working to create. They do this without ever actually building a real model or prototype–it’s all virtual. They can discuss the application to, say, the auto industry, who no doubt uses the same type of program when designing a vehicle, trying to minimize its weight and maximize its gas mileage. But the real story here is what happened at the end of class. Each student had to journal about what they learned and observed–not about the content, which is what I was expecting, but about the process of collaboration. So they are thinking metacognitively about the teamwork–everyday. The idea of having them reflect on the process of working together helps them hone their skills, process through whatever issues might arise, and become a more effective team. This was 21st Century learning, right before my eyes!
Collaborative problem-solving and creative thinking were just about the theme of the day as I progressed through the CTE courses. Sure, there were two classrooms that were less dynamic, but most were working together to determine why their small engine wasn’t working properly, to create funny pictures of teachers and classmates using Photoshop, or to design a logo for a mock website.
I have conducted observations of CTE classes before, but I have never done learning walks of this many all at once. As I was leaving the school, I realized that these guys do this stuff naturally. They get it. Dan Pink, Alan November, and Tony Wagner would be proud!
