Month: March 2014

To AP or Not?

Another interesting article about the move away from AP classes: “Is it Time to Reconsider AP Classes?” from Mindshift.

I’m not shy about my dislike of AP classes (there are a few posts about AP classes on this blog. I’m not going to restate them here.) This post raises some very good points about why AP is being reconsidered in many schools.

Recent issue in my daughter’s school: an AP Music Theory class is being proposed. Comments from the administrators were that they didn’t want to offer it because it wouldn’t appeal to students of color/low income/ELL. Wow. Horrifying.

iPad Implementation

Interesting piece in edudemic.com about successful iPad (or 1:1) implementation, “5 Critical Mistakes Schools Make with iPads.”

I’m watching my daughter’s district get ready to roll out iPads to 7/8 next year. Since my daughter is older, I’m not directly involved, although I have a good sense of what they’re doing from conversations with teachers and admins.

The five errors this article addresses:

  1. Focusing on content apps
  2. Lack of teacher prep in classroom management
  3. Treating the iPad as a computer/laptop
  4. Treating iPads as multi-user devices
  5. Not having a good answer to “Why iPads?”

From my vantage point, the district is handling a few of these well, while falling right into these errors on others.

Apps: I’m not totally sure what apps they’ll be recommending, but from my conversations with teachers and the questions I hear at a couple of committees, the focus is on content apps. I’ve reviewed a few grant requests for iPads, and they tend to list 20+ content apps. As this article discusses, the powerful apps are the “consumption, curation, and creativity” apps, such as iMovie, Educreations, etc. These are the apps they should be requesting.

Teacher Training: I definitely see a lack of teacher prep, both in classroom management and in how to use the devices to provide better education (and isn’t that the goal?) The district did give teachers an ipad, but as the blog post suggests, that isn’t enough. I was at a recent meeting about professional development, and it was painfully obvious that the teachers want more training. How sad that the Tech Training in next year’s PD schedule was in February. FEBRUARY!!! iPads are rolling out in September!

The best PD is training teachers do themselves, but they need to provided with that paradigm. They need time to work with the devices, to see the tools modeled and used in setting that are not threatening or have 30 kids sitting in the room. I’d love to see them do an EdCamp (I’ve offered to run it) or to create learning cohorts with teachers teaching themselves.

I have seen the admins at conferences, but have yet to see a teacher from this district. That, to me, is a big error.

Multi-user: Fortunately, they are going 1:1. They did a limited pilot last year, and found that classroom sets didn’t bring much change. The best results were in a 1:1 setting. I agree, and am happy to see them going down this path.

Communicating “Why?” There has been some good communication and reasoning around why they are using the iPads. One principal said it was to improve “individualized instruction, immediate assessment feedback…” Another said, “…to go beyond the classroom, giving kids a world view…” These are good goals.

I am concerned about this message, “…the iPad initiative will be monitored to see whether student learning increases and test scores rise.”  Student learning is not best measured by tests.

Video

Susan Cain: The power of introverts | Talk Video | TED


Being a strong extrovert, learning about introverts made me rethink so many of my — and society’s — existing paradigms. What social behaviors do we value? How do we teach kids?

My kids are both strong introverts. My daughter is probably off the charts, although as a teen-ager, she also enjoys being with friends. However, she avoids large events, has a small, tight group of friends, and craves having a full day of time all by herself. A full day of school exhausts her.

Where does this leave her academically? As Susan Cain explains, school now revolves largely around group activities. Even if the work is done on your own, you’re always surrounded by other people – up to 35 or more kids in a classroom.

No wonder she retreats to the safety of her phone in school. It’s one way to be by herself in a sea of humanity.

Destructive Homework

Yet another article about the negatives of homework. I’ve posted about homework so many times in the past, but can’t pass up another one.

A few things in this article popped out — the mom saying she has backed off being the homework dictator, for one. I’ve done that this year, and it’s been a godsend for both my daughter and myself. The funny thing is, very little of the day-to-day homework gets done anymore, yet somehow she is doing just as well, and even better, than before.

The destruction of family relationships due to homework is significant in our house. Homework is very, very difficult for my daughter. A full day of school exhausts her. She has no room left for homework. This has been the case her entire life. Hindsight is 20/20, but I wish I would have said no homework until she was in 5th grade or so. There were FAR too many evenings arguing over stupid worksheets. I am so grateful to my daughter for broadening my mind to see beyond my world view that academics and school are everything. Just because it was for my, and school was very easy for me does not mean it is always the case.

My daughter did a major shift in type of class this trimester, away from the AP classes to more creative classes. In the little homework she’s done, it’s been with great interest and attention. Guess what – it’s all been creative, problem-solving types of work, not paper based assignments. Art projects and visual demonstrations of learning have been approached with enthusiasm.

The homework question is one we are seriously considering when looking for a school for our son, who is entering 9th grade in the fall. The high schools we like also have a reputation for considerable homework. At one interview, we made it clear that we do not want hours of homework per night. Maybe they won’t admit him because of this, but I just can’t see four years of him spending 3-4 hours a night on homework. That would leave him no time for music, for relaxing, for exercise.

Video

Understanding Ukraine: The Problems Today and Some Historical Context – YouTube

I love John Green. He talks so fast, I think he gets in twice as much info as anyone else….

I cannot evaluate the content in this video, as I know next to nothing about the situation in Ukraine.

I do know, however, that John Green has nailed how students – and adults – learn. I learned more about the situation in this 6 minute video (which I watched twice) than I have in the last few weeks.

Green makes great use of using history to understand a current situation. There is really no way to understand what’s going on there without knowing the history, but he does a great job moving through the essentials, and demonstrating how history, geography and politics all contribute to the current situation.

Wouldn’t it be great if students were empowered to do this type of assignment? Not only does video production require writing (like a paper), it also requires visual literacy skills. Yeah! 21st century skills!

Professionally, I would love to be able to produce content out this quickly as it relates to current events. I’m not keeping my fingers crossed….

A Better Experience

Thankfully, we’ve had a better experience (so far, at least) than Lisa McElroy’s family (see Standardized testing: I opted my kids out. The schools freaked out. Now I know why..) in opting out. There are many differences, including state (we’re in Minnesota), grade (my daughter is in 11th) and tests (only math at 11th grade.)

As much frustration as I have with my daughter’s school, they were very accommodating with this request. I expect I’m not the first — they knew exactly what to do, and did not give me any grief. In Lisa’s post, the principals and others came after them to encourage them to test. I’ve had none of that, thankfully.

In Minnesota, it is legal for a parent’s to opt out of the test. In my case, it’ll show up on my daughter’s transcript a “parent refusal.” OK, that part is totally annoying and irritating, but better than putting her through the test.

I know testing is crucial to teacher evaluation, and as Lisa points out, who’d ever want to penalize the teachers? In my daughter’s case, I’m not sure how it impacts teachers. At 11th grade, just for math – I’m not sure what it does. In addition, her test score is not likely to be stellar. She hates math and does not test well. Maybe that’s why they aren’t giving me any resistance!

When I first discussed this with my daughter, she was not excited about opting out of the test. However, before we made the final decision, we had a long talk with her. She’s quite supportive of the idea now. I just hope they don’t try to give her the test, but if they do, she’s well armed with the fact that her parents opted her out.

Lisa’s post is an excellent reminder that the schools and district aren’t the ones making the testing decisions, at least for the statewide tests. It’s coming from the legislature. I will write our legislators and tell them of our decision and why. Will post that letter later!