Target Practice

“I’ve been doing lots of thinking lately, apparently storing food for thought. After reading many studies and literature reviews I wanted to explore some new perspectives and this post reflects some of my current thinking. The process of trying on new perspectives interests me. It would be helpful to me, if you have any reactions to post, respond or provide a link to related research or discussions. Enjoy!” – Kathy

For years educational institutions have been feasting on a buffet of technological innovations. Father knows best, and our national leadership and other stalwart sponsors direct the technology spending and perpetuate the feeding frenzy, all designed to improve student learning. Like a reality-show-hoarder, schools have amassed a disconnected collection of tools. A brain numbing cacophony of screeching voices from educational stakeholders hides the silent retort of teachers bristling from offense and seeking asylum inside the confines of a classroom designed to produce good citizens and workers from the last century. And where are the students in all of this? It’s time for an intervention for the dysfunctional family we regard as our broken educational system.

There have been numerous proposals purporting solutions to the problems in education. The locus of research will address the victims: teachers and students. Neither of them is responsible for purchasing or implementing technology. They simply adapt their rooms according to a plan set forth by leadership and ask the essential question: How can the use of technology improve instruction, meaningful learning and retention of knowledge? This three-pronged question reveals that something is fundamentally wrong with the current educational system’s approach to technology integration. While research supports holistic, learner-centered pedagogical approaches coupled with curriculum formulated using the understanding by design methodology, the system does not practice either of these models when adopting new technologies for school integration.

Clamoring to adopt 21st century learning standards for student achievement and driven by the need to appease the public, school systems have measured their success using student-computer ratios and standardized test results. Low ratios imply greater access to computers among students and teachers; however the quality and consistency of the available devices may be a more critical consideration.Test scores don’t seem to bear out the hallmark of success. Where can we find the truth? The tree of knowledge has become an octopus suffocating its prey with the purple haze of confusion.

In all of this, teachers must still teach and students learn. It is a wonder that despite the moon-like of technological terrain, teachers are able to navigate an obstacle course designed to entrap them. Research demonstrates that teacher beliefs about education are fundamentally tied to their pedagogy. According to Judi Harris of William and Mary (2005) there is a need to “…demonstrate pedagogically appropriate uses of technology.” Harris argues that a technocentric view of technology integration is a bias. When it is applied in the form of instruments, reporting data on the state of technology integration, the results are viewed with a lens preferring constructivist teaching methods. Harris challenges this paradigm. “As discerning educators and researchers, we should question why teacher’s roles must change to integrate technology effectively into K-12 curricula. Surely the technologies themselves do not require this shift, as current teacher-centered classroom uses demonstrate.” (pg. 119)

“I conclude with Harris’ quote because as a classroom teacher myself, it challenges me. Teachers just want to do their best for students and yet the external forces seem to prevail, creating a dysfunctional dynamic in the name of progress.” -Kathy

A Few Predictions for 2011

Most predictions anticipate some kind of change and elicit an ‘ooh ahhh’ response. I, on the other hand, say, “Prove me wrong.” about some of these statements because I am quite sure they WILL NOT change this year.

By the close of 2011 we will still…

all have a spaghetti mountain of different power supplies for various devices, none compatible. (Come on, doesn’t this bother anyone else?)

be paying more for data plans on phones than we do for the same access at home. (2 year plans, please, we are like hostages to these companies.)

be more tech equipped at home than at school. (Hmmm, do we need more gadgets at school, or maybe just standards web access, yes that would be nice.)

not be a paperless society despite the growing number of web apps. (Copies = Work?)

be faced with a rising cost of living and more job insecurity. (Teachers job security based on student test scores. Do you think the students will feel the heat?)

not care if people can talk in holograms. (Please, I would rather have mag-lev skateboards and that was just pie-in-the-sky)

be wondering if climate change is actually occurring based on local weather anomalies. (It was so cold this winter!)

find people who have landlines. (2 people, 3 phones?!!)

wonder why people haven’t joined Facebook. (Identity is stronger, not weaker when you own one.)

add more tests to make sure students are prepared to pass more tests so teachers can keep testing, I mean teaching!

more and more talk, less and less action when it comes to educational reform.

Have you noticed anything that should change but hasn’t changed in years? Feel free to add it in the comments section.

Are Essential Questions really essential to students?

The other day as I was listing several EQ’s on the board for students to copy into their agendas, a student inquired, “Why do you have to write these questions every day?” I wanted to know exactly what he meant. It seemed to me that I had been following the charge set for by our curriculum department to use EQ’s to guide instruction and as a kind of end-in-mind target for students to achieve, by developing their own answers to the questions as an assessment of their learning. I probed for a clue.

How many questions does it take to determine authenticity?

The response was surprising. “Shouldn’t we be the ones asking the questions?” he persisted.Is it possible that by stating EQ’s we are robbing students of the curiosity they need to drive their learning?

I teach 3rd grade and it’s a wonderful age because students are going through a self awakening. They are becoming better observers of the world, connecting the dots and truly questioning things. They do raise questions and from time to time these question challenge me to take a closer look at my practice. I have always been interested in questions and questioning. Like most teachers you have been taught to use a variety of questioning techniques to get the neurons to fire more furiously inside a students cerebellum. Now I wonder, how can I teach my students to ask better questions so they can really learn what they desire to learn? Imagine a classroom of students who really knew how to dig and probe and question! It sounds exhausting but somehow it just might unleash the wisdom of creative problem solvers to tackle the challenges of the future. Self directed learning comes from asking intrinsically meaningful questions.

So I ask you, how can we get our students to ask more and better questions so they will not be satisfied until they discover the answers?

I found this resource, when I googled ‘students ask the questions’
http://www.engines4ed.org/

“Real thinking never starts until the learner fails.” -Robert Schank

Speaking of Socialism

“Three branches and three levels of government”, I explain, diagraming the hierarchy of national state and local government on the interactive whiteboard. “Now you try. Match the roles with their positions in this table. Yes, Governor is in the executive branch of state government, just as President is in the executive branch of the national government.” We are studying the roots of democracy in 3rd grade Social Studies. “What is a socialist, someone wants to know, why is it a bad thing?” Interesting question and observation. So often teachers can hear adults speaking through the mouths of children. ” Socialism, hmmm, what does it sound like?” Someone says he hears the word ‘social’. “And what do you know about social?” I persist. It’s like having a party or having friends, several agree.” OK, we can look it up” audible groans. “I will look it up”, I encourage. “Let’s see”,

” Any of various political philosophies that support social and economic equality, collective decision-making, and public control of productive capital and natural resources, as advocated by socialists …”
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/socialism

Interesting, I think to myself. This sounds just like our school system. The students are satisfied, sort of, they have no further questions after we discuss the meaning of collective decision-making. On the other hand, my head is imagining what it would be like to have a school system created in the image of democracy. Why? For the very same reasons, ‘we’ capitalist supporters enjoy innovation, self determination and upward mobility. People who actually work within the governmental structure don’t enjoy those economic benefits. We don’t generate capital, so we can’t play the game. I see this incongruous match of public schooling with the teaching of democratic principles a truly fascinating societal tension producing unrealistic expectations for schools.

I googled the topic and found a number of people agree, acknowledge and in fact support the socialist agenda of public education. On the other hand, the detractors also feel strongly that these two philosophies should not coexist indefinitely. What are the alternatives?

Joanne Barkan digs very dig and supplies ample fuel for the fire of educational reform in her recent article in Dissent magazine.

Inspired Classroom Upadate – Wiki for Texting

Last December I started a classroom wiki. I kept it private and controlled and asked parents to request memberships to join as a viewer only. For me this worked well because I needed to feel in control and comfortable with the tool as a part of my Inspired Classroom model. Students responded very well but parents never really got it. Some joined others just let well enough alone.

This year I started a new wiki right away and got all the students on board within a week. It is open for public so parents can get to it easily without barriers. Students are the only ones with access as members and writers. They can create pages, add comments, pictures and have their own folders.

It’s been 6 weeks since we started school and my students seem to think the wiki is a great way to text! I have reviewed making comments, appropriate use and so on but they really want to text. Is it possible that in a year the students are so much more aware of social networking, texting on phones and twitter from their parents and TV that they expect to be able to text?

I am fascinated by their desire to communicate synchronously. Still, I need to develop writers who can communicate whole thoughts and express their ideas and opinions with support. Will the wiki really succeed in addressing helping students reach their writing objectives? I guess that’s up to me!

Update! They made some great comments today about our black widow spider.

Refrain from Critical Thinking

Too much critical thinking may cause you to crash and burn in your teaching career. Think less and enjoy life more. Teachers learn to over analyze everything and everyone to the point of exhaustion. Like too much sun soaking up every drop of moisture in a sponge, STOP drying out of your own thirst for learning, trying to become less “critical” in your self reflection. Each complaint, like a drop of oil in the sea collects with the other droplets and forms an oil slick.

By now you should know that my purpose for writing is persuasive and my goal if to convince you that less is more when it comes to being critical. I say this for your own good. I am speaking from first hand experience and extensive casual observation both on and offline. Teachers, we are too hard on ourselves and we are our own worst enemies. The very nature of our job has made us experts at finding fault.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho Marx

Leave it to the politicians to get involved in correcting our educational system based upon our own contemptuous complaints. Did we turn the gun on ourselves? I say, hold your fire and start singing another tune. Personally, I love teaching and I love my students. I don’t plan to invite anyone under my microscope of self recrimination and I don’t think you should either. Less self “critical” thinking = bliss.

Education or National Healthcare

When people are sick they go to the doctor and when they need education they go to a teacher. The difference lies in the treatment plans and the way we pay for these services. Healthcare is considered by some to be a right, just as education is. Well for those who think a national healthcare system would guarantee that right, think again. If education, a long standing right can go down the tubes then so can healthcare.

The economic storm has caused the levy to burst open and monies funding education have spilled uncontrollably down into a deep chasm forming what amounts to an abscess festering like an untended wound. It is too raw to heal without help. If only you’d been able to buy educational insurance maybe your child could be guaranteed the education they deserve. Unfortunately no such options exist.

With all the fuss about the healthcare crisis and all the debate about insuring the uninsured and making healthcare available to everyone it seems to me, the whole preventation has been overlooked. Education is all about prevention and therefore I would like to state that without adequate education our society will be too sick for ANY kind of healthcare system to redeem.

Now what? We grasp for purchase in the spinning vortex of political rhetoric. It is sucking the life out of education, public safety and the general infrastructure of society. I think the only thing national healthcare can offer the public now, is unlimited refills on pain medication to make our economic future more palatable. Put your money where your mouth is, US Government, and stop telling us that we need to accept your bitter pill of healthcare reform. No amount of healthcare will stem the education crisis, and without education what hope do we have for an employable workforce or a viable future? EDUCATION IS OUR BEST PREVENTATIVE STRATEGY. EDUCATING OUR CHILDREN IS OUR BEST INSURANCE POLICY.

For a well researched comparison education and healthcare models refer to this post http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2009/09/preexisting_ignorance_healthca.html

Define Textbook

How will the Georgia Senate define textbook? The future of our students’ backpacks hang in the balance!

clipped from www.ajc.com Well, maybe. On Tuesday, the Georgia Senate voted 45-5 to expand the definition of “textbook” to include computer hardware and technical equipment to support the use of digital content.

Are you a closet organizer?

I am sitting in a session with the notable Bernajean Porter who is expertly guiding a small group of 30 or so Fulton County teachers to a new understanding of tranformative learning I have had an epiphany! Ms. Porter has devloped a grid for understanding a hierarchy learning and it occurred to me that most of us are or have been closet organizers! Ask yourself this question… Have you ever used technology as the hanger and the content as the articles of clothing students hang up neatly in their closet of knowledge? I realize this is a very personal question but I think if you’re honest with yourself you’ll find that because of the standards and content requirements we are all expected to deliver in a timely fashion, we often take out the content and hang it up on the technology hangar and make sure it is neatly organized, even color coded in the closet! That’s is, from now on, my kids are going to take out their content and display it in many different forms, venues and truly express their appreciation, passion and new ideas generated in openness. Bernajean insists that higher order learning will lead to higher standardized test scores. What do you think?

Inspired Classroom – Inspiration and Persperation

The Inspired Classroom is now part of an experiment for a handful of teachers in my elementary school. Thanks to our innovative principal, Matt Rogers, our focus will be to provide greater and more timely access to web based tools, data and opportunities for interaction, for our students. The model, pioneered back in ’06 by Darren Wilson from Texas, is being used in pockets around the country and perhaps elsewhere but it is largely an underground movement. It’s partly an issue of branding, lack of central leadership and the use of private classroom wikis or LMSs creating sealed pockets of experiences.

The set up involves creating a 4-5:1 ratio of computers to students in your classroom and making the computer a part of individual PBLs. In other words, each group of 4 students has a computer sitting at one end of their cluster of desks or table. Lessons follow the typical, direct instruction (mini-lesson) a guided practice (demonstration) and then the students perform a group task independently using the computer as a resource for data, place to post reflections etc… depending on the project requirements. The teacher facilitates the activity and the class reconvenes to share their experiences. Students in each of the project learning teams have individual roles and responsibilities. I have established 4 distinct roles: chooser, recorder, driver and manager. These roles change daily giving each student a new responsibility to look forward to and a new job to learn each day. So far I have only implemented one project and although it was a big hit among students I was baffled as to how I might build in a better mechanism to track/assess the group progress.

I have loads of great ideas, some borrowed and some blooming in the poppy fields of my own imagination. The trouble is, how can I help students record their experiences effectively and use the process as a KWl, a study guide creator, and so on? I am investigating blended learning approaches and virtual school curriculum for clues. Stay tuned for my observations, student and parent reactions and feel free to give your feedback, suggestions or links that might help my students succeed on this new path.