21st Century Skills

Teachers as Learners, not Teachers

Will Richardson is one of my favorite thought leaders in the education world. He has a new book out, which I will have to purchase and read. (“From Master Teacher to Master Learner.”)

Quick quote from his new book, as previewed on his blog:

Teachers must move their own practice in transformative ways toward a focus on learning, not knowing. That’s not to say that the need for knowing isn’t still important. (Though there’s a strong argument that there’s way too much curriculum to know.) But it does suggest that to best help our students become powerful learners in the modern world, they need teachers who are master learners as well.

SRA – Individualized Reading

Nostaglic post from Audrey Waters about the SRA Reading Cards of my childhood.

First, Audrey Waters is awesome. She is even far more snarky than I am, and for that, I love reading her stuff.

Second, this post traumatized me! But, caused me to think.

Waters talks about the SRA program through the concept of personalized learning. She brings up B. F. Skinner’s “programmed learning” concept. Yup, that’s definitely what it was/is (I guess it’s still around).  I totally see her point here: kids were often “rewarded” when they finished other work by getting to go to “THE BOX.” You read, answered questions, and checked it off, “DONE!” Then, on to the next one. Step by step.  There’s no creativity, no freedom of choice. I can’t remember the questions about the reading, but I’m sure it was basic, low-level reading comprehension.

She points out it’s often strong readers who loved this program, not the kids who struggled and were always reading the orange (or blue or green – whatever colors were the easier cards.) I can see that, too.

Box of SRA reading materials, ca. 1973. Image from an ebay posting.

Box of SRA reading materials, ca. 1973. Image from an ebay posting.

I see all this, and will look at SRA in a new light. Yet, I loved the SRA Reading program when I was a kid. LOVED. I mean it made me very happy to get to do SRA reading. Why? Because, for me, it was personalized. I got to go at my own pace. It was torture for me to sit through reading classes in the early grades. I had been reading on my own since I was three. Reading with a class caused me tremendous anxiety and frustration. I just wanted to READ. Not hear other kids learn how to read!  With SRA, I could read as fast and as far ahead as I wanted, instead of getting told to stop reading ahead. Admittedly, this was something I could do very well and it got me strong positive feedback. So, why wouldn’t I love it?

I see her point, and look at the website, see that they now have a digital version! One potential positive with the digital – maybe – would be that kids who weren’t enthusiastic readers wouldn’t have to show everyone what color they have. It’s possible. And, the kids who liked to read far ahead, they can do that, too, without being teased. (This never happened to me, but it did to my son. It is just as traumatic as seeing you’re behind.)

Thanks, Audrey, for that trip down memory lane!

SXSWedu

Just back from a crazy trip to Austin, TX for SXSWedu. I admit I was beyond excited to get a chance to go to the legendary conference.

Here’s the highlight reel:

Reading digital text

There is much controversy about the efficacy of reading on a device. In the past few months, a couple of “studies” have come out showing that students don’t learn as well when reading digital text. This session took issue with these studies, and I applaud them. I am oversimplifying their points here:

  • One major point was that comparing reading on a device to print is like comparing apples and oranges. It is not the same type of reading, usually. Device reading is often for a completely different type of content.
  • Point two: it is crucial that we teach students how to read on a device. The skills of digital reading need to be taught.
  • Point three: digital text offers advantages including immediate feedback.

For someone who builds digital materials, it’s important to note that we need to use digital text to enhance the reading experience. Things like customizable fonts/sizes, audio narration, highlighting, taking notes – all these things are important.

The founder of Curriculet was part of the session. It was very interesting to hear why he founded the company in response to what he saw as a lack of good digital content when he was a teacher/principal.

NatGeoEd.org

maps

Tile map activity from NatGeoED.org

Went to a fun playground booth by National Geographic. Great activities and demos about using geographical concepts with kids.

Kahoot

What can I say about Kahoot besides that I love it? They are coming out with some new features in the next few months that will make it even more useful for my needs.

Student Data

Student data and data privacy were big buzz topics at this conference. I should have attended more sessions about this. I need to do more on this topic. Hoping there is some of this conversation at ISTE as well.

Final Keynotes

The last day was 4 keynotes.

The first was the director of the Grammy Museum talking about the importance of music education. I agreed.

Sal Khan spoke. I have never heard him speak at a conference, and he was awesome. He’s very funny, a great speaker, and has a great story to tell. I knew lots about Khan Academy, but it was great to hear from him about their recent things and plans for the future.

Screen Shot 2015-03-13 at 2.23.25 PMHowever, the best part was the tech fail. He was showing a video about a kid who used Khan Academy to not only catch up in high school but get ahead. The kid just accepted a full time job at Khan Academy (he has gradated from college now…) The video didn’t work. The audio did, but not the video. The tech guys tried three times, nothing. Sal just gracefully plugged through and kept going. Fortunately, the audio was the most important part, but the lesson here was watching him deal with the potential melt down of his talk. He rolled with it and was inflappable. I will remember that for the next time my tech fails — fortunately, it will not be in front of hundreds of people!

Overall Thoughts

This was only the 5th SXSWedu, building off a very successful brand for the Music and Film events. I believe I heard there were 8,000 people for the EDU event. After ISTE with 15,000+ people, this one felt small – but that’s not a bad thing. I was able to get in to sessions with no problem and the venue was easily accessible without being overwhelming. Attendees were an interesting mix of some teachers, more administrators and lots of edtech company folks.

Sessions were a mixed bag, but that could be because of the sessions I chose. I naturally gravitate to the technology sessions, but with one exception (the digital reading one), there was nothing new or even that interesting. I started attending sessions that were far more out of my normal subjects (such as the student data session), and that was better. Still, the sessions I attended were not all that inspiring.

As I’m learning, the best experiences come in more direct connections. The most valuable conversations happened in the Playground, where a handful of vendors were set up. It wasn’t an Exhibit Hall (which was oddly open only during one afternoon???) although it was people with commercial products. It felt more like a demonstration area. There was a space for short talks and another for hands-on interactive experiences. This was where the folks from Kahoot and National Geographic were located.

Overall, I think SXSWedu has great potential, but at this point, it feels a little unfocused and it needs to find its stride.Not being quite as teacher centered at ISTE, the conversations were bigger and more theoretical.  Unlike ISTE, SXSWedu has potential to have a bigger museum presence. We felt that conversations about informal learning and how museums are a great partner option would be welcome here. Next year we’ll propose a session!

Choir and Technology

I’m currently at a conference, although not really. My daughter is singing in a national honor choir (congrats!) and I’m here as her “chaperone.” Basically, it means I have a ton of freetime while she is in rehearsal!

As chaperone, I can go to sessions and concerts. I was excited to see a fellow blogger Chris Russell presenting today. (To be clear, Chris is truly a blogger with useful information. I just happen to vent on a WordPress site from time to time….)

I’ve seen Chris present number of times at education technology conferences, but really enjoyed seeing a presentation in a music conference setting. Many different kinds of jokes from this perspective!

It’s pretty clear that choir classrooms are not the first to jump on the technology bandwagon (except for Chris!) He did a great job setting up why it’s crucial to be using technology. He points out (very accurately) that the kids are using technology in your class already, whether you like it or know it.

I especially appreciated two thoughts. One was a phrase I haven’t heard before — but just loved and will use (with credit, of course!) The concept of technology integration vs. outtegration. He feels that most of the tech use in music/choir classes has been outegration — a recording made outside of class, or listening outside of class. Instead, the use needs to be in class.

Second, was attributed to someone I neglected to note – but the quote was, “Are you here to learn or are you here to change?” This is a great way to think about technology in classrooms. We should never be using tech in a classroom just for learning the same way we always have. Does the choir classroom look the same way it did 50 years ago? Instead, technology allows us to change  the way the classroom looks and the way the learning happens.

The rest of the session covered 9 excellent strategies for stepping in to the shallow end of the SAMR model: substitution and augmentation. This is a great way to approach a group of people who aren’t comfortable with tech. There were definitely a few of those people sitting by me.

The audience asked some great questions. It seemed to me that it was a group of folks hungry for information about this topic. It is definitely scary to some, but this wasn’t a group that seemed resistant – quite the opposite. It was clear that some of them were familiar with the concepts, had used some of the tools. They were there because they were excited by the possibilities and wanted to learn more. I left feeling very positive about the direction this is going. I think there will be many more opportunities for Chris to share his knowledge with this group!

Traditional Learning

Again, from the MOOC I’m taking about e-Learning Ecologies…. this course is really far bigger than e-learning. It’s about transforming education to the 21st century.

Great quotes:

Long-term memory in traditional education is remembering it until the day after the test.

This one is fabulous. The goal of the learning is learning how  to find information. If a student has researched, found the information, and presented it somehow,

The empirical details [about a subject] are irrelevant. They don’t need to be remembered because you can always look them up again.

Maverick Superintendent

My local school district is looking for a new superintendent after a long tenure (17 years, I believe). The current sup is much loved and revered by some — he’s done a great job keeping the district fiscally sound and has weathered the ebbs and flows of student enrollment. He closed schools early on and is now having to add space. He’s led the district through significant demographic change and is responding to the changing demands. He saw the introduction of the first 1:1 iPads in the district this year.

I did have the opportunity to participate in a focus group to give input on the new hire. No idea if they’ll listen to anything we said…. Just saw this great article about a maverick sup in NJ — THIS Is what I’d like!

Why? Highlights:

…we’ve redefined what public education should look like, to include creative problem solving and social and emotional well-being to be as important as academic success.

…we reframed what teaching and learning looks like by focusing on project-based learning.

I ask teachers all the time, if you can Google it, why teach it? Because we have so much information today. How do you help kids navigate that? That’s critical thinking and creative problem solving.

[businesses] want kids who can solve problems and think critically.

I am not anti-testing. I’m concerned about the policies associated with the testing regime and how they may detract from the quality and purpose and the use of tests.

Let’s bring this guy in!!!

E-Learning Affordances

I’m taking a MOOC called E-Learning Ecologies. At first, I wasn’t sure it was interesting or applicable, but I am finding it to be a fantastic experience. I don’t take MOOCs to get the certificate — I take them to get the knowledge. I don’t have time to do the level of work for the certificate, but I certainly enjoy being exposed to the new ideas and concepts. This is just a place for me to jot down some notes from this week’s conversations.

The 7 E-learning Affordances

The 7 E-learning Affordances

This course is putting forth 7 E-Learning Affordances. (See image). These are completely applicable to my work and to my shifting views of education.

Today, I’m watching video lectures about students as content creators as opposed to content consumers. The concept is quite basic.

  • Traditional learning: hand a student a textbook, asking them to read a chapter and spit back the info on a test.
  • Content creators: assign students to report on a topic. They talk about a report, but it could be a written report, a video, a poster, etc.

Assessment changes, too. It becomes irrelevant to be able to recall a series of facts. If you did all the research, you learned how to find the facts — a much more valuable skill. The  capacity/ability to produce a scientific artifact — becomes the evidence of learning, not the memory. “The test that just assesses memory is not as important as the test of what you actually did.”

While this concept is not at all new to me, I liked how they explained it. There is, as well, the need for me to find others who reference this type of thinking. For example, when I talk to people at my kids’ schools, it always goes better if I can cite a professor or academic work.

Balance of Agency

Here’s a great example in the shift of balance of agency — many years ago, there was Casey Kasem’s Top 40. We were told the top 40 songs. Now, everyone has music on their phones, create their own playlists — create their own top 40.

This is a shift from centralized agency to distributed, where people build their own.

Another great example is video games v. film/tv. In a video game, your actions have an impact on the narrative. In a film or tv show, you have no impact on the narrative. And — the video game industry is now apparently larger than Hollywood!

How does this impact education? This shift to active learning has to be reflected in schools. Kids are used to defining their own narrative, be it a playlist, a video game or learning. If learning does not adjust, we have problems.

More about Student Choice/Freedom

Sam Tanner writes,

High school students are not used to freedom in academic work.

I agree, and am pleased that he has just done the assignment he knows pushes them. They are in charge of demonstrating their mastery, in whatever way works best for them.

Saw a blog post today with a similar message, “Demonstrating learning doesn’t have to look the same for every student” by Amber Teamann. She talks more about elementary students, but the theory is the same.

In our particular situation, the vast majority of assignments at my daughter’s high school involve demonstrating her mastery of the subject through a prescribed, teacher led task. At least in her experience, it’s been a rare instance when she could do this in whatever way she wanted. In most cases, Mr. Tanner’s class being the exception, she’s struggled with this – as have her peers. They have been so trained to do what they were told that they cannot think for themselves.

In her particular situation, the way she’s being asked to demonstrate mastery is through word-based tests. This is not her strength, and she has not always done “well” (when measured by grades.) This can lead to a learned helplessness, so eventually the student stops trying. Learning becomes all about the grades and performance on tests, not about learning and analyzing the material.

Yet, when she found the confidence (in Mr. Tanner’s English classes) to explore and explain her mastery as she wished, she created elaborate projects that accomplished the goal: show what she learned. She integrated an entire trimester’s worth of learning into one art project.

This is life, people. There isn’t a teacher always telling us what to produce. Yes, certain jobs require this, but for the most part, we choose the jobs that fit us. We develop solutions to problems. We communicate to others — and we often choose to do this in a way that suits our personality and strengths. Why aren’t students encouraged to do this, too?

Stealth PBL

I have a ton of respect for teachers who teach they way they know is right, in spite of all the pressure on them to teach the status quo. Fortunately, my daughter has had one of these teachers. It has had a significant impact for the better.

Here’s a recent blog post he wrote about the project he assigns to most of his classes. A couple of paragraphs explain why he does this and its impact.

Here’s what he does:

I inflate the point total, give the students a list of the state standards we were supposed to meet as a class, and allow them two weeks to assemble everything that they accomplished in the class as evidence that they worked to meet said standards. At its core, the project is an interpretation of project-based learning which, at its core, is a response to Dewey’s theorization of experiential or authentic learning. This approach has always seemed a more authentic assessment of what a kid actually got out of reading literature or writing essays with me for the duration of a semester.

At this school, this project is significantly different than what most classes require. As I’ve discussed in many previous posts, the amount of multiple choice testing is ridiculous. I’ve bored this particular teacher with rants about this many times in the past (poor guy). I am always so impressed that he just does what he knows is best. He understands these kids and gets great results.

It also seems fantastically out of place in a high school. Tests and worksheets are far more expected than an open space for students to express content in their own way. Veteran colleagues or well-trained students are often baffled or dismissive when I explain the project to them.

How do kids react?

The final project frustrates and confuses them because they aren’t sure what they are supposed to do. High school students are not used to freedom in academic work.

That last sentence is key (emphasis is mine.) So much of high school is doing what the teacher wants in order to get the best grade in order to get into college. Kids don’t get much chance to explore their own thinking. It’s so much about memorizing and spitting back.

I still don’t get why spitting information back is preparation for college or for life after college. In my job, I never have to spit back information (and I’m a historian!) I’m always problem solving, creating solutions, finding information and developing better ways of doing things.

I have to say, it has been gratifying watching my daughter do the final project for this teacher (she’s had two classes with him where she’s had to do this project.) She wasn’t frustrated or confused. I honestly have never seen her put as much time, thought and effort into a homework assignment. Both times, she spent hours creating her project.

Her projects were just that — creative. Not rote. They were both visual representations of the course content. They were not literal, they were abstract. While one did involve words, the words were secondary to the visual and tactile representation. The words were part of the art. When asked about it, she could totally explain how the project reflected what they learned in class. She was able to create and think, rather than just spit back in a prescribed manner.

I’m just grateful these kids had the opportunity to work with him.

Achievement Gap or Culture Gap?

Great article in the Washington Post by James Boutin, a teacher near Seattle, “We are trying to close the achievement gap all wrong.”

I served on a couple of committees for our local school district. We’d get extensive reports about the “achievement gap” — how the test scores of certain ethnic groups were lower than the scores of the majority group. Were there big differences? Yes.

But I kept asking why the only measure of success was these certain tests. The admins looked at me like I was crazy. The other parents also looked at me like I was crazy. I tried to explain there were two reasons I asked this question:

  1. Standardized tests test a certain type of learning and not necessarily the kind of learning that is, in the end, valuable.
  2. Standardized tests are culturally specific. They are often culturally biased and reflect the values of the majority culture. Besides, how do we know that other cultures valued succeeding on these tests?

Boutin’s article explains this much more eloquently than I ever did.

Ironically, I would say schools continue to disservice students because they’re so hellbent on closing the achievement gap of standardized test scores.

Students who have to spend the vast majority of their day doing reading, writing, and math instruction geared toward helping them pass tests lose valuable opportunities to practice other skills and learn things critical to being human and participating in American civil society. Why don’t we spend more time teaching students about interpersonal communication or nutrition or personal finance in public schools? Why do we still cling to a curriculum that is outdated and thin?

He goes on to talk about how different groups value post-secondary education. He gives an example of a student who wasn’t looking to go away to college because the family needed them close. As he discusses in this quote, the culture that values individual success isn’t the culture of all the students.

It reminded me that I come from a family and culture that puts great import on individual success. Different people and cultures will define success differently, and our public schools must be a place that accommodate those differences, particularly regarding how we talk to students about their post-secondary life and aspirations.

Early in my career, I had the good fortune to work closely with a group of Ojibwe people. The cultural values around home, family and success were so different from mine. Going away to college was not desirable – it brought back memories of the days when Ojibwe children were forcibly taken from their homes to go to boarding schools. Kids who did leave for college often returned before graduating, as they found it difficult to live away from their family and culture.

I’m sure there are many cultures in today’s schools that have similar cultural values. Why is the mainstream culture measure of success the only one we value? Why is that the only way to get ahead?