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Teachable Moments, for all of us

On Friday, when discussing the earthquake and tsunami that had just struck Japan, I remember saying to students, "It looks like the death toll will be in the hundreds, which is horrible, but considering the size of the earthquake is pretty low." Well...as I write this,1 the official death toll is at 2,414 and expected to rise to perhaps as high as 10,000.2

Still image from a 1st person view of the tsunami
Still image from a 1st person view of the tsunami

We've been discussing the earthquake and tsunami in class, though I haven't done much "educationalizing" of the disaster at this point. So far my M.O. has been to show some videos or pictures, give news updates of what's going on, and then have time for students to ask questions or just talk about what's going on. At some level I feel like trying to craft organized lessons about subduction zones, Moment Magnitude scales, tsunami generation, or nuclear power generation would be taking advantage of the disaster.

I want students to know what's going on in Japan. I want students to understand the details. That's why I show the videos, why I spent a big chunk of time searching for video and images that seemed to capture the disaster. And the fact is, students want to know about the earthquake and tsunami and potential meltdowns at nuclear power plants. They want to know why tsunamis are so dangerous ("I don't get it, it's just water, right?"), what causes earthquakes ("I heard it was caused by the 'super moon.'3"), and how nuclear power plants work ("If there's an explosion at a nuclear power plan, how can it not be a nuclear explosion?").

The general public wants to know what's happening and why. Our students want to know what's happening and why. I want to know what's happening and why. However, I want student interest to drive our classroom learning about the disaster. I don't want to use the disaster to drag out a month of earthquake & tsunami lessons if the students aren't interested in learning more.4

I have been pleasantly surprised with the number of more "mainstream" media outlets doing some exemplary explaining about earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear reactors. I've especially been impressed with the time given to explain how nuclear reactors work and then what's going on at the Fukushima Nuclear Plants. Boing Boing did an excellent job describing how nuclear power plants work and NHK World explained simply yet thoroughly what was happening at Fukushima.

These are the times when it seems very clear to me that a little scientific literacy (or at least a healthy dose of skepticism) is an extremely useful skill. There are quite a few bits of misinformation out there, but there are also a lot of quality explanations of the science behind the disaster.

 

  1. at 10:10pm EDT, March 14, 2011       [↩]
  2. via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Sendai_earthquake_and_tsunami#Casualties [↩]
  3. FYI, it wasn't. See here for a in-depth take down of the super moon myth     [↩]
  4. Yes, I get following the state curriculum means I'm essentially forcing this same thing most of the school year with students. My especially guilty feeling on these topics most likely derives from the fact that I'd feel like I'd be taking advantage people's suffering simply as an educational hook.     [↩]
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Exams: SBG-style

The goal of any exam, ideally, is to assess how much students have learned over the course of a semester or school year. I changed the focus of grading in my classes from counting points to counting progress towards specific learning goals, I knew my exams needed to reflect that change as well.

This summer I had initially thought I might design some sort of alternate, performance-based exam that would mesh well with the tenets of standards-based grading. However, this year all exams for the same class were required to be exactly the same regardless of teacher. Since I'm currently one of four teachers who teach the 9th grade Integrated Science course and the only one using standards-based grading, I knew I had to take our common exam and make the best of it.

So, the exams had to have the same questions, but they didn't need to be in the exact same order, right? I reordered all the questions on the exam based on the learning goal they assessed.

Multiple choice section, SBG exam

This process uncovered several questions which didn't address any of the learning goals, so these "others" were grouped together to make their own section.

Overall, I wasn't thrilled with the exam, but I think it was quite good given the requirements it had to meet.

Assessment

Breaking down the exam into its composite learning goals allowed me to assess each learning goal on the exam individually. It took decently longer to grade the exams in this way, but it also provided me and my students with a wealth of information about their learning throughout the first semester.

I created a Google Spreadsheet that automatically calculated the individual scores for each learning goal and the overall exam grade. Once the grading was done, I shared each student's spreadsheet with them through Google Docs.

Below is an example of a filled out scoresheet (and here's a blank calculation sheet if you're interested):

Example Exam Calculation Spreadsheet

Details

Overall grades. You may notice I calculated two "overall" grades. I told students their overall grade on the exam would be the average of their scores on each learning goal (giving each learning goal equal weight), but I wasn't sure if that might result in some odd effects on the overall grade due to some flaw I hadn't planned for. As a check, I also calculated the exam's score "traditionally," or simply by dividing the total points possible by the total points earned. Interestingly these two scores were almost always ridiculously close to each other (for most students it was <1%). I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Unfinished long answer questions. The exam had 6 long answer questions and students were required to complete at least 4 of them. I had a few students who either skipped the long answer questions entirely or did fewer than were required. It didn't make sense to penalize any one learning goal for not doing all the long answer questions (since, after all, simply not doing the long answer questions didn't necessarily mean they didn't understand the content of the learning goals). However, I felt that there should be some penalty for doing fewer than required1.  As a result, I calculated what percentage one long answer question was of the entire exam and divided that by 2- which gave me 1.84% in this case. For each required long answer question that was not completed, I took 1.84% off their overall exam grade.

Spreadsheet-fu. I honed some serious "if-then" formula skills in the process- an area of serious spreadsheet-fu weakness before this spreadsheet. Despite the time it took me to figure out how to make the spreadsheet do what I want, I'm still pretty sure using the spreadsheet instead of calculating everything by hand saved me several hours. Plus, now I have another formula type under my belt.

Final thoughts

Perhaps unsurprisingly, my predictions about what learning goals would be problematic for students on the exam were dead-on. They were the same learning goals that more students struggled with during the course of the semester. There really weren't any surprises on the mid-term.

What then, is the purpose of an exam in a SBG classroom? Exams are meant to assess how well students know the material that has been presented throughout the semester. However, if I am regularly assessing students' understanding of learning goals throughout the semester is there any benefit to a final, summative exam? Most students' exam grades were eerily close to their grades for the rest of the semester2.

If we're doing SBG well, it seems to me the final exam is unnecessary. We should already have a good understanding of exactly what students know, so why bother with a big test at the end of the semester?

Should the exam in an SBG classroom be something totally different than what we've traditionally come to think of exams as being? Or should they just be done away with?

_____

  1. At first I really balked at penalizing students for not completing the required long answer questions. However, after thinking about it for a bit, I came to the conclusion that to some degree the decision of a student to skip one or more of the long answer questions  was indicative of a lack of understanding of the content at least to some degree.     [↩]
  2. On average, the exam grades were just a bit lower than grades for the rest of the semester. I can rationalize that in several ways: additional anxiety due to it being an exam, or a less than perfect exam design, etc.     [↩]
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EduCon: Like being wrapped in a warm comforter

There's often concern expressed about events like EduCon or the group of people that we follow on Twitter as being an echo-chamber of similar ideas- where we all pat each other on the back for being the same. While that's a valid concern, for me, coming from my particular situation, it's invaluable to come together with a group of educators who are of a similar mind as myself.

The people were of all types, from all sorts of schools, filling all sorts of different roles, and yet there was this common thread: it was clear that we all cared about students and their learning first. This wasn't just a get-together of a group of far flung friends, it was a meeting of passionate like-minded individuals. What struck me most about the weekend was how strong the feeling of community was among this seemingly disparate group of educators. Despite the event lasting just over 2 days, there was a tangible sense of shared purpose. It was great to meet so many amazing educators.

It was like being wrapped in a warm comforter after being left out in the cold.

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SBG: One Quarter Down

This Friday marks the end of the 1st Quarter of the school year. At this point I'm totally a SBG n00b. For the standard, "I can successfully implement standard-based grading into the 9th grade Integrated Science classroom," I'd rate myself at the "basic" level. I've got the basic idea, I've got the basic setup, it's going basically well, but it's a long way from where I hope it will be by the end of the year.

Reflections

Students don't get it

Students understand that their overall performance in class is based on their scores for the learning goals we've gone over in class. They understand that only their most recent score for each learning goal counts. Unfortunately they have at least 8 solid years of being conditioned point-grubbers. The whole concept seems totally foreign to their entire school experience. It saddens me that explaining to a student their grade is based on their actual understanding of the content draws a blank "I don't get it" look. I keep telling myself that by frequently explaining the basic tenets of SBG and sticking to my guns students will eventually reach the point where understanding smacks them upside the head and they spend the rest of the year walking around school demanding that all their teachers do it this way. However, I'd be willing to bet a big part of the problem is the fact that...

I don't get it

Well, I get it, but I'm not sure I get how to implement it. I'm not sure I get how to communicate it. I'm not sure what I'm doing day to day supports the "radical" mandate of SBG1. There have been several changes to my school life this year that have left me time-strapped and feeling I just don't have time to go through my curriculum with a fine-tooth comb and tweak it to fit the SBG mandate. Part of the issue is my understanding of...

Qualitative SBG

Many of the SBG Titans out there teach quantitative subjects such as Math or Physics. I'm teaching a much more qualitative 9th grade Integrated Science. Conceptually, I understand how SBG works within a qualitative course. On the implementation side I'm not as comfortable. Great inquiry-based activities focused on the life cycle of stars are a little trickier for me to design than those around the work-energy theorem. I'm not trying to cop out of providing a curiosity-rich learning environment here; some topics are just harder for me to design great stuff around. Which leads to the complication of the...

State curriculum

The Connecticut State Curriculum Standards for 9th grade Integrated Science aren't that bad. Sure, they're often poorly worded and overly expansive,2 but there are a lot of interesting and relevant topics in there. I'm not one to worry about skipping a standard or six, but there are people (generally the people that fill out my evaluations) who think it's best that I not miss any.

Yesterday I had a crazy daydream about a place where there weren't oh-so-specific standards for each class and I could really let students' questions and curiosity drive what we cover when. I get why we have state standards and think it's generally a positive thing, but I dislike their specificity. We keep forgetting to leave room for curiosity and the pursuit of interesting questions. I need to find a balance between keeping up with the other Integrated Science teachers and making sure I'm putting student learning at the forefront, which is much more difficult because I'm...

Going it alone

I'm the only teacher at my school using SBG. I've pitched it to my Integrated Science colleagues and explained its wonders to my principal, but they didn't seem too interested3. I'd like to work with them to puzzle through how we'll deal with the state standards while doing SBG, or share the effort of designing great activities and projects that keep curiosity and discovery at their center. Even trickier: we were given a mandate that our mid-term and final exams must be exactly the same. That wouldn't be a big deal if we were all on the SBG Express. Since I'm riding solo the common exams probably won't live up to my expectations of what an SBG exam should look like. It certainly won't be focused solely around the learning goals I've developed, which is a major bummer.

Some Questions

2nd Quarter

In the traditional points-driven system, the points simply reset to zero at the beginning of each quarter. Students start fresh. In my understanding, that doesn't really jive with the SBG system. At this point, I'm planning on bringing over all the learning goals and scores from the 1st Quarter into the 2nd and not reset student scores until the end of the semester. How do you SBG wizards out there handle this? I'm not sure if holding over grades from quarter to quarter is technically "allowed," which might make that decision for me.

Assessment routines

While there's no one right way to implement SBG, I'm always looking to make my implementation higher-impact while remaining easy to understand. Here's how things have gone down so far:

  • I give frequent small quizzes over a learning goal or two that we've been talking about in class.
    • If there is an obvious deficiency in student understanding, we take some time in class focused on the weaknesses and do an in-class reassessment later. If the vast majority of students understand the topic it becomes the responsibility of individual students to reassess before or after school.
  • I do frequent projects or activities that cover a couple to several learning goals. Usually there are at least a couple content-based learning goals and a few skill-based learning goals.
  • I've been pretty formal about letting students know when I'm assessing a learning goal. I'm not sure if this is the best method- especially for learning goals in the vein of, "I can effectively communicate and collaborate with others to complete a task." I'd like that to simply be an "always on" learning goal that can be assessed anytime they work in a group. However,  I'm not quite sure how to communicate that assessment in the midst of group work, or whether it'll cause a problem to not assess every student on that learning goal for each group activity. For example, it's easy to pick out students who aren't doing well on that learning goal while it often isn't as attention grabbing when they're doing well. As a result I worry about assessing the negative instances more than the positive, thus artificially driving that score down.

How do you handle "on the fly" assessment?

______

  1. "Learning is King"       [↩]
  2. There are at least 5 standards I could envision being semester long courses by themselves. [↩]
  3. On a positive note, my SBG implementation came up in a meeting where the Asst. Superintendent of Curriculum & Instruction was present and she seemed interested in hearing more.     [↩]
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The Story of My (Connected) Life: CECA 2010 Preso

This post includes information and additional resources for my presentation at the Connecticut Educators Computer Association (CECA) conference on October 18, 2010. The full conference schedule is available online, if you'd like to see the other sessions being offered.

[UPDATE: Several people requested information about how to access twitter from school if it's blocked. I added the info in its own section below.]

Presentation Title

The story of my (connected) life: Building your own network for professional learning

Description

Follow one educator's journey from online newbie to a well-networked teacher while exploring and discussing the possibilities for in-time, on-demand professional learning through online connectivity tools such as blogs, twitter, and more along the way. We'll explore how to create your own professional learning network that will allow you to share and connect to other expert educators from around the world.

The Slide Deck

The story of my (connected) life- CECA2010

The Rules

  1. Learn.
  2. It's about relationships.
  3. Jump in. Play around.
  4. Figure it out as you go.
  5. Share. Don't be shy.
  6. You don't need to read it all.
  7. Be patient.
  8. Reply. Converse.
  9. Follow people of interest.
  10. You don't need to do it all.
  11. There are no rules.

Resources

RSS & Google Reader

Resources mentioned

Accessing Twitter from school (if blocked)

First, I recommend trying to get Twitter unblocked. Many times it's blocked by default without anyone really thinking over the benefits of leaving it open. These are all options I've used at one time or another, all with varying degrees of success. Many I haven't used in a long time, so your mileage may vary.

  • Tip #1: Use FireFox
    • Mozilla FireFox is a web browser that lets you add "plugins" that give it additional features. It also tends to work better than Internet Explorer. I've been able to convince my IT people to download FireFox on my school computer without too much effort1.
    • Add Twitter Plugins to FireFox
      • TwitBin or TwitKit
        • I've used both, though I tended to like TwitKit better. Even though Twitter was blocked it was able to update the twitter feed- though the twitter user's images never showed up.
  • Tip #2: Use HootSuite
    • If you can't download anything, you might try HootSuite. HootSuite is a web-based twitter application that has a nice set of features. Though Twitter has been blocked at various schools where I've tried, often HootSuite isn't. If it's not blocked, then you can get to your Twitter stream. HootSuite does require you to create an account, but it's pretty easy to do.
  • Tip #3: Go big.
    • This option might be frowned upon by many IT people & administrators, but from what I've heard it works exceptionally well. Of course, there is a price to pay (literally). WiTopia is a program that allows you to circumvent internet filters. It's primarily designed for those living in areas with a censored internet (i.e. China), though I've heard it works quite well at schools as well. The downsides are a) it costs $50, and b) it requires a download, which you may not be able to do on a school computer.

Please don't use any of these tips if they'll really tick off your IT people or violate state, federal, or local laws. 🙂

Personal Learning Network (PLN) Info

Education/Science Blogs I Read

  • 2¢ Worth
    • David Warlick's blog on educational technology. Warlick has been blogging about educational technology longer than I've known blogs existed.
  • Action-Reaction
    • Frank Noschese is a high school Physics teacher in New York. He blogs about his adventures in standards-based grading and physics education.
  • Always Formative
    • Another member of the standards-based grading borg, Jason Buell teaches middle school science in San Jose, CA.
  • Apace of Change
    • By Damian Bariexca, an English teacher turned school psychologist who also happens to be quite savvy with the instructional use of technology.
  • apophenia
    • Written by danah boyd, one of the premier thinkers/researchers on the subject of teens' use of social media.
  • Bridging Differences
    • A back & forth exchange between Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch on education, policy, and reform.
  • Deborah Meier's Blog on Education
    • As advertised. Meier is on of my personal edu-heroes.
  • Digital Ethnography
    • Written by Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropology professor at KSU. He studies how we interact in and through online environments and is an amazing educator in his own right.
  • Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?
    • Scott Elias, now a middle school principal (& Apple Distinguished Educator) shares his thoughts on leadership, education, & technology.
  • Drape's Takes
    • Darren Draper is a director of technological services at a Utah school district and (if I'm not mistaken) is working on a Ph.D focused on teacher professional development.
  • dy/dan
    • Dan Meyer has taught math in CA and is interested in using digital media (among other things) to create meaningful learning experiences for students. He's gotten a lot of recognition lately, including a stint on Good Morning America & an interview on CNN. Currently a doctoral fellow at Stanford.
  • Educational Insanity
    • Jon Becker is an assistant professor at the Educational Leadership Department at VCU and knows a lot about school law, educational research, school policy, and the founder of the "data-is-a-plural-noun" posse.
  • Ideas & Thoughts
    • Dean Shareski is a digital learning consultant at a school division in Saskatchewan (easy to draw, hard to spell) and teaches at the University of Regina. He was awarded the 2010 ISTE Award for Outstanding Leadership in Technology and Education, which is kind of a big deal.
  • ijohnpederson
    • John Pederson is an Educational Technology Liason in Wisconsin who shares short, interesting, and sometimes quirky & irreverent bits of knowledge.
  • in education
    • A creative-commons licensed online educational journal that explores "our connective educational landscape."
  • JoeWoodOnline
    • Joe Wood is a teacher and instructional technologist from California. He's done quite a bit of work with Google Earth and helping teachers maximize the technology they have available to them.
  • Mathalogical
    • Sarah Cannon teaches math in South Dakota. I believe she might be currently working on an advanced degree in education policy.
  • Megan Golding
    • Megan Golding is a math teacher from Georgia who shares her thoughts and ideas on math and a variety of other subject.
  • Moving at the Speed of Creativity
    • Wes Fryer has been blogging, podcasting, and presenting about education for a very long time. He shares tools, tips, and insights into education and technology use.
  • Nashworld
    • Sean Nash, a biology teacher from Missouri, shares thoughts on teaching, pedagogy, education, and technology. Typically very insightful & interesting reading.
  • Non-Inertial Teaching
    • Brian is a physics teacher in Ohio who blogs about teaching physics and implementing standards-based grading (a system I switched to this year as well).
  • Open Thinking
    • Alec Couros is a professor of educational technology and media at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan. He's tweeted more times than any other one person I follow on twitter and is a education rockstar in his own right.
  • Practical Theory
    • Chris Lehmann is the principal of the Science Leadership Academy, a progressive, inquiry-driven high school in Philadelphia. He's an inspiring leader and advocate for children, learning, and schools. I'm really not sure how he fits everything he does into a 24 hour day.
  • Quantum Progress
    • John Burk teaches physics at a private school in Atlanta. He's a standards-based grading aficionado.
  • /Re:thinking/
    • OK, I don't really subscribe to this blog (because it's mine). I post irregularly on science education, reflections from teaching, standards-based grading, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
  • Science Teacher
    • Michael Doyle is an ex-pediatrician now teaching high school science. His beautifully written blog shares his thoughts on life, education, and living (among other things).
  • Stager-to-Go
    • Gary Stager (who happens to be the CECA 2010 keynote speaker) provides his thoughts on education policy and reform as well as articles written on computing in the classroom. He's been using technology in the classroom since I was just wee child.
  • Teach Paperless
    • Shelly Blake-Plock shares his vision and work to create student-centered, technologically advanced classrooms that empower students to take charge of their own learning.
  • Teaching|Chemistry
    • Ms. Bethea shares her thoughts and experiences from the chemistry classroom. A member of the standards-based grading borg.
  • The Edge of Tomorrow
    • Ben Grey does a lot of thinking about what schools and instruction should look like given the resources that are available to us. Good deep thinking shows up in his posts. Also, don't utter phrases like "media literacy" in his presence.
  • The Line
    • Dina Strasser is an all-star English teacher. She's one of my favorite bloggers- she knows her stuff and loves to share her experiences.
  • Think Thank Thunk
    • Shawn Cornally is an ultra-super-duper standards-based-grading enthusiast who teaches physics, calculus, and some programming. An excellent educator who focuses on learning before all else. His writing style (and links and hover text) is irreverent and awesome. He's from Iowa. He might turn into Cornally-Hulk if I forgot to mention that.
  • WCYDWT-Science
    • Inspired by Dan Meyer's (see dy/dan above) "What Can You Do With This" method of instruction, this is a group blog of science teachers posting videos and images that might be useful to spur student inquiry. Started up by Eric Brunsell.
  • Weblogg-Ed
    • Will Richardson has been a visionary thinker in the educational use of technology for a very long time. He's a super-blogger who will often get scores of comments on his blog posts. He provides plenty of food for thought.
  • (worthlessness and wit)
    • Daniel Agins teaches middle school social studies in Connecticut and is one of the few members of my professional learning network that I've met. There are a lot of good thoughts and ideas coming from his direction.

That's a lot of blogs (see Rule #6).

  1. Even though I didn't have the ability to download programs on my school computer, it did let me install FireFox plugins. If that doesn't work for you, I'd recommend talking to your IT people about changing some settings around.       [↩]
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Work in progress: Project Climate

I'm definitely overdue for a bit of in-progress analysis of Project Climate (as described here). We've been at it for a few weeks now, and we're in the final stages of the project as a whole.

Makin' me proud

  • Quality of product. The quality level of the students' writing and thinking on climate change related topics is impressive. Take this student's entire work, for example. The posts are a great mix of information, opinion, and insight.
  • Staying engaged. I was afraid as we began this project that students would grow tired of it and lose momentum and enthusiasm. So far this hasn't been an issue, and the level of engagement seems to have increased somewhat as students became more comfortable with the format.
  • All of you. We've gotten quite a good response from those of you in the Twitterverse & beyond. Students really enjoy getting comments from people outside of the school and from around the world. I'm not sure this would've been possible without twitter1.
  • Rethinking learning. A student's reflection & self-evaluation of the project says it more eloquently than I could phrase it:

As far as the learning part goes, I’m not sure anything I have learned would be on a test. I have learned things that no one could learn from a text book because they are objective to the point of teaching people the facts. I haven’t learned the facts, I don’t know the carbon emissions of countries by heart, I don’t know all the projects people have set up to help solve global warming, and I don’t think that I should. I have learned far more important things. I have learned that you don’t have to be wealthy to help others, maybe it’s even the opposite. I have learned that you can fix a problem you didn’t cause. I have even learned that people of different cultures and different native language can work together to make a big difference.

The not so great

  • More parents. I stink at parental involvement. I should've done a better job at communicating with parents and getting them involved in the project. I sent out a letter early in the semester explaining what we'd be doing, but didn't do much since then. Next time around this needs to improve.
  • Self-evaluation. I wanted students to be intimately involved in the assessment of their work. Unfortunately I didn't get started on doing this with students until recently. Self-evaluation will still play a role in the students' final assessment of their work, but I didn't set up the framework early enough to have it play a major role.
  • Not enough experts. I managed to make contact with a couple scientists who were willing to help out- but I  should've put forth a better effort to get people working in and around climate change issues involved2
  • That great story. I don't have a student who was totally struggling and then suddenly became engaged in the project and subsequently committed their life to being a climate scientist- or anything close to it. Some students aren't as engaged as I'd like- many of the same who weren't as engaged pre-Project Climate. I'm not sure if this is really a negative or just the way things are. I would've preferred if all the strugglers suddenly became over-achievers, but perhaps that's a little optimistic.
  • Lack of local knowledge. I haven't done a great job of sharing what we're doing within my own school as I have with those online. I've told a few other teachers and a couple administrators about it, but I'm not sure any of them have actually looked at any students' work. I'm not so great at self-promotion, especially in person.

Next time around

I'd like to run this project again in future years. From my (biased) perspective, the students are actively involved in selecting their specific topics and as such are finding it easier to really dig into the content. Student learning seems to be high. Classroom happiness is high. It's a fun time to be in the classroom. However, we're spending essentially 5 weeks studying climate change. Is that too long? Is the depth of learning worth the loss in breadth of learning? Will students bomb the standardized tests because we traded electricity & magnetism for Project Climate? Will I get support from the administration in the future?3

Help 'em out

Students are still writing and reflecting on issues of climate change. They'd still love your thoughts and comments on their posts. Check them out:

__

  1. If you're sick of seeing me posting #ProjectClimate tweets, don't worry, the project will be over soon. 🙂      [↩]
  2. Big thanks to Eric Heupel for coming in and explaining to students his work involving the effect of warming waters on native fish populations in the Gulf of Maine.     [↩]
  3. I did run this project by my principal and curriculum coordinator before it began, but at that point it was hypothetical. Now it's real and eating up nearly a quarter of a quarter of the school year- and totally different from anything the other teachers with the same class are doing.     [↩]
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Shifting my stance (a bit): IWBs

Joe Wood dropped a comment on my last post (Where I Stand: IWBs) that helped to rethink my stance a bit on the IWB. I'm pretty surprised by this, since I really have thought about the "IWB dilemma" quite a bit and wasn't anticipating changing my position any.

What stays the same

Okay, so most of the opinions I spelled out in my last post haven't changed. I'm still not a big fan of IWBs. Starting from scratch, they would not be my first choice for a tool to help improve instruction and transform the classroom. That being said...

What has changed

Many schools aren't starting from scratch. Many teachers who have similar thoughts that I have are still being force-fed IWBs. My school has, or will soon have, an IWB in every classroom. There's a significant amount of professional development time being thrown together focusing solely on using IWBs. Joe pointed out that this can open doors to talk about effective instruction as well as become a springboard for teachers who might otherwise be resistant to technology. Sure, I'm not happy about the purchase of IWBs for every classroom in our district, but I need to stop complaining about the unchangeable past and start focusing on how I can use what we've been given to bring about positive change.

What's next

  1. Try to get myself back on the IWB training team (I declined the invitation earlier this year). It might be too late for this.
  2. Re-familiarize myself with the IWB. I'm not really looking forward to this but I need to know what I'm talking about.
  3. Work to convince my administration to set up a professional development program similar to what Joe described- with a focus on improving instruction.
  4. Look to build off of the IWB training to introduce non-IWB specific tools (i.e. Google Docs, Ning, Moodle, or other collaborative, connective tools) and further the discussion about what makes good instruction beyond IWBs.

I'm pretty sure I can convince the powers-that-be that focusing on improving instruction is a worthwhile goal, though we'll see if that will translate into an improved professional development program.

Bonus

Joe dropped a link to his district's ActivBoard User Group site, which includes a boat load of resources on the topic. Check it out.

_______________

Image credit: Poster in my room, taken by me. 🙂

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2 weeks later: myTEDxNYED

A major problem with public education is tradition. "This is just the way things are done here," is a refrain that I've heard many times in my own short career. One of my take-aways from TEDxNYED is this: The tools and services to make schools modern and relevant are available, but schools need to overcome their "traditions. I'll avoid a breakdown of what individual speakers discussed1. Instead I'll try to comment on the broader spectrum of themes and reactions.

Themes

Theme #1: Education should be open. To me it seems obvious that a high quality education should be treated more like a universal right than something only available to those in nice neighborhoods of rich countries. I think many of the educators I know as well as the speakers (& hopefully you, reader), would heartily agree. However, it's quite clear that the current schooling system puts an awful lot of faith in for-profit corporations to provide educational content. Clearly this doesn't have to be the case. Many schools and educators are resistant. Why? "Because that's the way things have always been done."

Theme #2: Education should be social. This definition of social goes beyond using collaborative groups within your classroom. Instead (as Andy Carvin did such a great job illustrating) we should empower our students to set up collaborations without our classrooms to help tackle real problems. John Dewey noted that learning is socially constructed and this movement towards using social networks to connect people around a common problem seems to flow quite nicely from that idea.

Theme #3: Better Problems = Better Learning. Whether intentionally or not, as educators we tend to  shelter our students from real-world problems. We don't think our students are ready yet, don't know how to connect students to the problems, or are afraid of relinquishing our control over the students. Many speakers pointed out the fact that one of the greatest motivations for learning is attempting to solve a really good problem. Hats off to Dan Meyer who did his typically great job showing us what that actually looks like in an Algebra classroom.

Theme #4: Do it for the kids. Chris Lehmann makes this case so well2. Make schools a place of great relationships and great learning. We can't continue allowing schools to be places students detest. While Michael Wesch and Dan Meyer's talks didn't focus on the topic, they've both been great advocates to creating educational environments that focus around positive relationships with students as a cornerstone (see here and here, respectively).

Reactions

1: I'm much cooler online. This was the first large event I've been to with loads of people I've talked to through Twitter and blogs in attendance. I'm not so great at walking up to people cold and introducing myself. As a result I didn't meet nearly as many people as I would've liked.

2: It's great to meet locals. I had the opportunity to meet Dan Agins, who is the only other educator on Twitter (that I'm aware of) from Southeastern Connecticut. Perhaps it's a bit ironic that we first met in NYC instead of SE CT, but regardless of location it's nice to connect with people nearby. Let's hope we're just the beginning of a larger trend in the area.

3: Advice to sink in slowly. So much knowledge was dropped in such a short period of time at TEDxNYED that I'm really looking forward to the videos of the talks being posted online. There were several talks that I'd like to hear again to help me clarify my thoughts and ideas on the topic.

4: Post-TEDxNYED furor. There seems to have been a pretty big, "TEDxNYED-was-great-but-what-does-it-actually-do-to-improve-education" reaction from many attendees3. I was surprised that this seemed to be a major reaction. Perhaps that surprise is the result of me being a edu-conference newbie working in a school/district/state which doesn't sport a very high population of educators who are familiar with the ed-tech world. For me, this event was a reminder that I'm not crazy. A reminder that there are a lot of smart people out there who are on the same page. For me, that re-invigoration was necessary. It's easy to get worn down by the head-against-brick-wall experience that can be day-to-day teaching.

5: Oh, the irony. Coming back from my TEDxNYED weekend I had the honor of administrating practice CAPT (Connecticut's standardized test of choice) to 14 year old students that may very likely not even be graded. I'm sure the feeling was similar to Icarus' transition from delight in flying to despair in falling4.

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  1. Several people have already done this quite nicely. My own observations wouldn't add much value to what already exists. Plus the talks should be available online in their entirety shortly.     [↩]
  2. He deserves to be featured prominently in the education version of 40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 minutes.      [↩]
  3. Check out many of the responses at this site curated by Shelley Krause (@butwait).     [↩]
  4. This might be a little overstatement, but I was in a serious edu-funk the first week or so of school after TEDxNYED due to this crash back to reality.    [↩]
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Two years on: What I (don't) know

January 12, 2008. My first education-related blog post ever. It takes some hubris1 to start a blog. Perhaps even more to keep it active.

If I've learned anything in the last two years it's that I don't know as much as I thought I knew. When I started writing here I figured I was on the cusp of really getting this whole "technology" thing. As I start my terrible twos in this space (and on Twitter), I know now I knew less than I thought I did then.

It continues to amaze me that a) people read things I write, b) they find (some of) it useful, and c) I continue to be amazed about all of this. It's simple yet strong.

Thanks.

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Image: Cupcake #2 via cafemama, shared via cc-nc-sa

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  1. Or, perhaps, ignorance.     [↩]
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A start to the conversation?

Yesterday's "21st Century Skills" PD session marked milestone of sorts. While there has been much talk about using computers and technology in our classrooms, the conversations among colleagues yesterday had a different tone than anything I had previously been privy to.

About 15 people came to the session I helped facilitate. I was glad the participants came ready to think about new ways of engaging students and discuss the challenges and obstacles that stand in the way.

Among the positives:

  • Discussion on how our school's filtration policies are preventing us from moving forward
  • Discussion on the futility of trying to ban cell phones
  • Teachers sharing anecdotes about students planning and organizing school events using facebook
  • Brainstorming ways that technology can benefit our students and the challenges that come with them
  • Getting to share some resources with each other (I shared Dean Shareski & Jamie Raeburn Weir).

I know there's still a long way to go with lots of obstacles to overcome, but I feel like we've finally started to have these important conversations. Let's hope we continue to move forward as a school and staff from here.

Special thanks to Dean Shareski (visit his blog) and Jamie Raeburn Weir (visit her blog) for providing the 60 second shout-outs. I believe the participants were quite impressed.

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cc licensed flickr photo shared by pfly