Category Archives: adult learning

Coursera Drop Out

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My summer reading led me to enroll in Thinking Mathematically, a Coursera course offered by Stanford professor Dr. Keith Devlin. This was my first formal MOOC and I was looking forward to taking the course. Then, reality set in. The course demanded 8 to 10 hours a week and in order to get a grade, you had to view all the videos and complete the problem sets. I managed to do so for the first two weeks despite travel and vacation. This week, it looked like I would be spending most of Sunday completing the work. When an event this afternoon got cancelled, I was relieved because I could spend the time viewing the video and getting started on the assignment for the week. As I watched and worked out the problems, it occurred to me that this wasn’t the way I wanted to spend those suddenly free moments! The content is interesting and I like being challenged, but I found myself asking the age old question, “When am I going to use this?”

What did I really want to do with that free time today? Read! Paula White has been writing about the Virginia Readers’ Choice Awards and how she and her students are reading the books. Today, the National Book Award nominees were named and I would love to read a few of those. And somehow I also found Library Reads, a website that crowdsources librarians to identify the top ten books published in a month. Here’s October.  Jhumpa Lahiri, “The Lowland”  is on both lists. And there’s an interesting nonfiction book about a food program in Toronto.

I also want to write! I am inspired by Paula…she has been blogging every day, providing rich descriptions of her classroom, engaging book reviews and intriguing questions. From doing online coaching to teaching online courses about elearning design and online communications and working as an instructional designer for a project developing online courses to, until a few hours ago, taking an online course myself, I am immersed in online learning. There is much to think about with online learning but I seem to be living it and not making time to reflect on my work.

And, this was the first week of my community computer/tutoring program. What started as a summer conversation has resulted in a small outreach program to underserved kids in my town. The first meeting was a little chaotic as we really had no idea how many kids were coming. We ended up with a group of early elementary and middle school. I’m wondering how to engage each group: I’d like to get the first graders involved in a make project. Maybe making their own shoes? Provide materials like magazines, cardboard and foam. I’m going to dive into gaming with the middle schoolers…play a few as a basis for our conversation and then explore various tools for creating online games, starting with Scratch. Edubuntu comes with a couple programming tools like laby and kturtle.

To his credit, the professor warned us that the course would take 8 to 10 hours a week. I’m not sure why I thought I had that kind of time to devote to the course. I think I’ll just read the book.

Gardening Wisdom

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I spent most of Memorial Day Weekend in my flower garden. The cool wet spring has kept me from tilling and seeding so three days of sunshine and reasonable temperatures were a truly wonderful gift even though my stiff muscles might not be so grateful. I weeded, tilled, and readjusted. As I worked, I found myself thinking of all the things we learn from gardening including problem solving skills like creativity and critical thinking. And two huge lessons for me: the power of patience and long range planning.*

For now, I’ll start with just one lesson: Learning is never over. My main objective is to learn how to create a healthy, pleasing-to-look-at garden. That means each plant needs its optimal conditions as much as possible so it can thrive. They will be at their most beautiful and productive which in itself makes the garden look better.

However, there is also a design element. Some flowers are short, some tall, some bushy, some skinny. Some are planted for their foliage; others are planted for their showy blossoms. Plus, my garden is rectangular with a “front” side. However, you can also see the “back” side from the road so I’ve tried to create a two-edged garden. It all makes a difference in what goes where.

That’s why, even though it’s well into the season, I’m still moving things around. For both reasons: it’s a new garden so I’m stilllearning what the sun will be like in the summer. A shady spot a few months ago now gets almost full sun all day, something I didn’t consider last fall. A few shrubs have grown so they are now providing small oases of  shade in an otherwise fairly sunny garden. Plus, flowers are

There’s an element of awareness here that I think also plays into the notion of critical thinking. Sometimes, I just stand and look, thinking about what is happening in the bed. What’s blooming? What’s done? What should be blooming but isn’t? When did it rain last? What can I still being added. We came into several large clumps of hostas so expansion was needed. They make a great border but now the grasses that were forming the border would be hidden. So, out they came.

put in that spot that opened up when I moved the astibles? I may seem immobile in terms of gardening but my mind is cranking through a checklist of items to be considered.

There is an art and science to gardening that challenges the critical and creative thinker. I know many schools host gardens and I think it’s a great place to put these skills into practice. It’s a science lesson but it can be so much more…

*And, selfishly, I was looking for an excuse to post some pictures of my garden. The irises were gorgeous this year, if I do say so myself.

It’s the Learning I Care About

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We should try to bring back the joy of learning because you want to learn, not because someone is going to give you a grade at the end of the semester. Simon Schocken[1]

We’re just three weeks away from the end of the semester and the emails have started to arrive from concerned students asking about how I weight various elements of the course, how they will be graded, etc. etc. I have been providing them ongoing feedback throughout the semester, but I have not assigned a letter grade to any of their work. I follow Alfie Kohn in this practice and share this quote with them on my assessment page:

When I was teaching high school, I did a lot of things I now regret.  But one policy that still seems sensible to me was saying to students on the first day of class that, while I was compelled to give them a grade at the end of the term, I could not in good conscience ever put a letter or number on anything they did during the term – and I would not do so.  I would, however, write a comment – or, better, sit down and talk with them – as often as possible to give them feedback.

I do use a rubric for self-assessment. It came via Dr. Jon Becker who borrowed it from Dr. Gary Stager.

  1. I did not participate
  2. I phoned-it in
  3. I impressed my colleagues
  4. I impressed my friends and neighbors
  5. I impressed my family
  6. I impressed Karen Richardson
  7. I impressed myself

I use it as part of a mid-term and end-of-semester self assessment. The students often find it difficult to reverse the way they think about courses in terms of who they should be impressing. For many, they have never taken the time to consider if they were impressed because they were so busy trying to impress their teacher. And, they are much harder on themselves than I would ever be. (As an aside, I am pretty easily impressed: most of my students are working professionals with families and other responsibilities. Many times, my course is the first fully online experience they’ve had, Plus, it immerses them in an ed tech experience as we use technology to learn and share, something that frightens many of them. Finally, because my course puts much of the burden on their shoulders, it can be more challenging than the more typical read the book, write a paper course with which they are familiar.)

As usual, they have done wonderful work despite the lack of rubrics and grades. They have felt the freedom to take risks with new technology tools and some have failed or experienced frustration. But, knowing that they aren’t going to get dinged by a bad grade, they have been able to see failure and frustration as part of the learning process.

Yet, with three weeks to go, some of them seem to have forgotten my pledge to them. They go to the syllabus looking for the weightings and the point scores and when they don’t find them, I get an email. I reply, reassuring them I have no intention of changing my approach. The final project is important but it carries no more or less weight than any of the other assignments. I’ll take a holistic view of their work, and if they haven’t had any negative feedback from me, they are doing just fine. I remind them that the goal of the course is not the grade they earn, but the learning they’ve experienced.

I get a lot of positive reviews for the course and the students seem to appreciate my approach to assessment. My simple hope is that they carry this positive experience back to their own classrooms and schools.

[1] http://designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/radical-openness/the-end-of-education-as-we-know-it.html

Does This Count As A MOOC?

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Yesterday, I “joined” an online book club. The quotes are there because joining the club meant following it on Twitter and ordering the book for April. The club, called 1book140, is run by The Atlantic, and I discovered it through this article from The Wall Street Journal. Each month, the group votes for a book and then tweets along as the members read it. This month, the group is reading The ecco Anthology of International Poetry. 

Laura Moser, the author of the WSJ article describes why she chose this particular group:

There are only a few active book clubs on Twitter: Penguin hosts one, as does the Jewish Book Council. The clubs have different guidelines and formats, but most put forth a title for discussion that takes place on Twitter at a specific time. Because I couldn’t commit to being in front of my computer at any given time, I went with the Atlantic magazine’s 1book140, which is nearly two years old and now has more than 84,000 followers (although only a handful actively participate). I also liked the democratic chaos of the largely unmoderated discussions.

I, too, love the concept of “democratic chaos.” And being able to follow the flow in Tweetdeck will make the club a natural part of my day. I’ll be learning and sharing with others around the world.

So, does this count as a MOOC? I suppose it isn’t a “course” as it isn’t run by a university. But, like a course, it has a beginning and ending. Two facilitators, one of whom has ties to MIT, lead the group. There are expectations for participation like those outlined in a course syllabus.  I’m reading and discussing a book, albeit in 140 character bursts…sounds like every English course I took in college. Like most MOOCs, I won’t get any academic credit, and I won’t pay any tuition fees. And, I will be learning with a group, which seems to be the fundamental definition of a MOOC.

Why does it matter? Because it points to the difficulty and implications of defining web-based learning experiences. When we call some of these experiences MOOCs, we elevate them to a higher status. For teachers, it might mean the difference between receiving continuing education units or not. It is hard for administrators to imagine that real professional learning can occur in as part of democratic chaos; yet, for many of us, that is exactly where our learning happens these days.

 

 

 

Advice to Newbies

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I am in the midst of teaching an online course that focuses on educational technology for school administrators. While the focus of the course is educational technology, it is not a “tech” course. The participants do explore various technologies, but the main conversation is about how administrators can support the use of technology. The course is centered around the NETS-A and we move from visionary leadership to professional learning to systemic improvement in the course of the semester.

Many of the participants do not consider themselves technologically savvy and the course is their first online experience as well. I do a lot of hand holding at the beginning, and for some, throughout the semester, as they struggle both with the content that asks them to reconsider much of what they think about education and technology, and the technology itself. I do some scaffolding by way of screencasts of how to navigate our course in Google Sites, and I am always available to answer specific questions as I make it clear to them that they aren’t being graded on their ability to use technology.

Still, they feel overwhelmed. Their first assignment is to choose a technology and create a tutorial designed for school leaders. After reviewing her classmates’ work, one student commented on how much she loved Voice Thread and then wondered why she didn’t learn about it sooner. Another was determined to learn everything about all the new technologies that were introduced. Yet another despaired of every being more than an immigrant, unable to understand the new language and culture.

I give all of them the same piece of advice: there’s a lot of technology out there and more is being added every day. That’s the way it is going to be from now on. So, get used to always feeling behind. Give up trying to learn about all of it, but position yourself within a professional learning network that at least helps you build awareness of new trends and offer support for your learning efforts. Then, consider your needs as a teacher or administrator, and find one or two technologies that support those needs and learn all you can about them. Are you responsible for professional development? Then, maybe Google sites is a good tool for creating a shared space. Do you feel like you need to communicate better with all your stakeholders? Then, maybe you should explore how Facebook and Twitter could help with that outreach? Do you have lots of technology in your school but not much integration? Then, maybe it’s a model like TPACK that can help support your efforts.

And, when you discover a new-to-you technology like Voice Thread, don’t wonder why it took you so long. Instead, embrace it, learn about it, and be reassured that an “older” technology likely has more staying power so you won’t be facing its loss in a few weeks when the company goes under.

Finally, learning one technology in depth will support your adaptive learning as you will become more familiar with technology in general and the next time you’re facing a new program or tool, you’ll be better equipped to dive in.

What advice do you have for these newbies?

Supporting Informal Learning and Practice

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Dear world…I emptied my aggregator yesterday and started from scratch. I’m not sure why. I think it’s partially because I was tired of seeing that I had 1500 unread posts and partially because I just wasn’t using it in any meaningful way. I would browse, read a few articles, but it never led to anything. My goal for the year is to be more engaged through commenting and writing and my flabby aggregator wasn’t helping.

This morning, I began the world anew and spent time browsing through Tim Owens’ blog. There is lots of great writing there so if he isn’t in your agrregator, he probably should be. He struck a cord with me when he suggested that everything isn’t completely new just because technology has advanced:

There’s no denying that things have changed. But it’s important to keep in mind the context of these changes. A student who is looking on Facebook and texting while writing a paper isn’t actually that much different than one 15 years ago that was studying for an exam while watching TV and talking on the home phone.

The more things change, they say, the more they stay the same. But things have changed, Tim suggests, particularly in terms of being able to reach out to a larger community of learners to support our own informal learning.  He gives the example of a co-worker who fixed her own washing machine and his own success at fixing his own car, both accessing help on the Internet. My husband has kept our tractor running with the help of several online communities. When I was ready to attempt making sauerkraut from our overabundance of cabbage, I found the wild fermenter.

But, I am still learning from face to face communities as well although none of them are associated with what we traditionally think of as formal education (ie, taking a course). Sometimes, they are organized learning opportunities. Last weekend, we attended a conference sponsored by the Virginia Association of Biological Farming. We got to hear from experts in everything from cows to mushrooms to berries to bees. But often they are informal: my husband gets help with the tractor from a local farmer who is something of an expert in keeping things running with rubber bands and duct tape. I brainstorm with a friend about baking and crafting and compare notes on setting up our hives for the season and how I might get the colony of bees out of my house and into a hive.

I appreciate both my online and face to face learning communities. Sometimes, I find myself longing for face to face interaction with some of my online friends. For instance, I am disappointed when a blogger I follow talks about a special face to face event in her community and I know I can’t attend. The secret, I suppose, is to find strong connections in both the virtual and analog worlds and I am blessed to have some of both.

Respecting Teachers As Learners

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In his blog post, Do Teachers Need to Relearn How to Learn, Mr. Salsich wonders why teachers seem so dependent on professional development and are unable to transfer knowledge of one technology tool to another. He wonders why schools have to have organized professional development at all since you can pretty learn anything you want on the Internet. He concludes, “I’m beginning to wonder if teachers really know how to learn new skills independently.”

That conclusion seems a stretch and also something of a contradiction since Mr. Salsich admitted up front that he hasn’t learned things independently but rather took advantage of folks on the Internet to learn. So, the real question he seems to be asking is, “I’m beginning to wonder if teachers really know how to learn new skills independently by using web-based resources the way I do?” And that’s a question that shows the blind spot of many web-using educators: I found my network/learning/salvation on the Internet so you should, too. Is is just possible that some people prefer to learn by taking a face to face class? Or reading a book? Or sitting with a more experienced friend?

Another question nagged me as well…why are we blaming the teachers for lousy professional development? Maybe, just maybe, it isn’t teachers who are necessarily demanding professional development (I know of at least a few who would be happy to use the three-hour workshop time to work independently)? Could it be that that the school leadership doesn’t trust them to learn on their own and so creates one-size-fits-all professional development that functions as an accountability rather than a learning tool?

The biggest stumbling block for me, however, was the continued focus on tools. Certainly, teachers have had professional development related to wikis and blogs and other web-based tools. And if the goal of professional development is just to learn how to use a tool then showing teachers web-based tutorials and giving them time to view them and then apply their learning in relevant ways to their teaching would be very useful to them. But, I would hope at this point in the 21st century, we are focusing our professional development on pedagogical uses of these tools and tailoring our professional development to teachers’ styles and needs. When was the last time we even asked teachers what they might want to learn or what might be useful to them?

Let’s redirect the questions we use when we plan professional development: Are you a teacher who does a lot of collaborative projects? Then, a wiki might be a great place for your students to share their research and learning. Are you a teacher who has students doing independent reading? Then, LibraryThing would be a great place for them to keep track of their reading and write reviews for other students. Are you a teacher who has students keep math journals? Then, a blog would be a great tool for you to use for that kind of writing. Are you a teacher who would like a website where you can communicate with your students and parents more effectively and efficiently? Google Sites and Edmodo are great possibilities for setting up a home on the web. Once we’ve found a relevant tool, then we can certainly show teachers how to find others, either on the web or just down the hall, who are using these tools.

One of the things they might talk about would be classroom management, one of the things that is often left out of professional development. If the math teacher embraces the idea of blogging the math journals, what does she need to know about incorporating available devices into the routine of her probably already packed day? One of the things we know about teachers is that they have routines for just about everything as a way of reducing complexity and making efficient use of time. Adding technology can be a huge disruption to those routines so helping teachers develop new ones around the tools will go a long way to supporting their use. And, while they can probably find people on the web to help them, sometimes a face to face conversation with a colleague in another grade or department about what they did may be a better solution.

I applaud Mr. Salsich’s efforts at questioning our current professional development practices but would humbly suggest that one of the first steps in encouraging teachers to integrate technology is to do what we do with the kids: make it meaningful and differentiate for different learning styles. We might also spend some time learning more about the research into adult learning, which interestingly enough shows that adult learners prefer to be self-directed, something that is often not a part of typical professional development. We don’t have to teach teachers to be self-directed, instead we need to respect them and provide them the space, time and reason to do so.

Game Based Learning Old & New

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As a kid, I grew up playing pinochle with my grandfather and appreciated the strategy and collaboration. My grandfather was an amazing player who could predict with pretty decent accuracy what cards you were holding just based on his cards and the bids. He taught me by reviewing certain hands, pointing out where I might have earned an extra point or two or even turned the whole thing around by playing a different combination of cards. Like any game, pinochle has certain rules about what cards you have to play in response to the lead card, but you often have more than one card that meet those rules and with a bit of strategic thinking, you can make the most of even loser cards by how you choose to play them.

Now, I am learning to play a computer game. It is single player game so there is no teamwork, but I am enjoying in competing against myself and the clock. Each level offers potentially different ways to complete the tasks, but there seem to be certain solutions that save a few seconds and help earn bonus points. It means knowing how to most successfully work within the rules, just as it did in pinochle.

I even have a support network despite it being single player. Perhaps the reader might consider it cheating, but I was stumped on a particular level and went looking for ideas. The site I found offered particular strategies but, more importantly, provided analysis of the various tools and how they could be deployed just as my grandfather did all those years ago.

The biggest difference between the two experiences is that my grandfather and I could only review and imagine how we might react differently to the unfolding game. With my digital game, I can replay the level, trying different strategies to see how they change the outcomes.

But in both cases, I was learning, working within a system to problem solve and troubleshoot, skills I can apply in other situations.

The Almost Paperless Classroom

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Earlier this semester, I did an interview with WM’s Director of Academic Information Services about my “paperless” classroom. I explained how I was avoiding doing any printing or copying but offering documents online and reframing activities to take advantage of the web.

A quick example: I play the TPACK game with my students, putting together content, technology, and pedagogy to create ideas for using technology in instruction. Normally, it is a very paper heavy activity as I print out cards and lesson sheets. This semester, as I prepared for that class, I considered digital ways to present it. I ended up using an online flash card site to create the game. The flash cards had a pedagogy on one side and a content area on the other and then students were challenged to come up with their own ideas. I skipped the paper recording sheet, opting instead to have them use a wiki page. It was fortunate that I had done this…the night of the class I was sick so we met in Elluminate instead and having the online resources made it much easier to stick with the plan!

But, last night, the paperless dream came to an end. We were using Scratch and while I talked the students through an introduction, I wanted them to be able to explore on their own. But I also knew that some would appreciate some written handouts to follow along with and Scratch has these great program cards where you learn a bit of code at a time. I considered just having them access the cards online…but trying to navigate between the card and the Scratch window on the laptop is often difficult because there just isn’t enough real estate on the screen. So, I printed…ten copies of three pages which I handed out a bit ruefully.

There’s a lesson here, though, about practicing zero tolerance: it just doesn’t work. My students would have been frustrated if, in order to keep up with my paperless dream, I did not provide them with what they needed to be able to learn. In this case, it was a piece of paper. They agreed with me that they preferred to have a paper guide along side their laptop rather than having both items on the screen. So, it was a pedagogical decision and one that I stand by.

Next week, we meet in Second Life so we will be both paperless and classroomless so maybe that makes up for my 30 pieces of paper.

One Thousand Miles

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During the first two weeks of the new year, I put over 1000 miles on my car, driving around my state to visit five different school divisions.  Three were smaller rural divisions; two were larger suburban divisions. But, they all had several things in common.  All were grappling with challenges related to funding and student achievement.  All were concerned about what the new year and new administration would mean for schools.  And, all were aware that they were doing an impossible job in impossible circumstances.

Yet, all seemed to have a sense of hope and a level of optimism that I certainly didn’t feel as I thought about the impossibilities…if we just work a little harder, find some more resources, increase our own enthusiasm, we can engage the kids in the content and help them learn the state mandated content by the looming deadline.  But, while the test was certainly a driving force in their lives and the lives of their children, they also had personal goals for helping the kids learn to live, work and play successfully in the contemporary world.

They were trying to figure out how to balance all the demands they were juggling, always keeping the students’ needs firmly in mind. And, they were trying to figure out how to balance their own lives and work even while they are sponsoring clubs and staying late to tutor and sitting in the bleachers for the basketball game.  Mostly, they were working very hard.

I was reminded of a post by Chris Lehmann in which he mused about a system that requires martyrdom to function. Chris wrote,

I want to celebrate every teacher who has made this job a calling. Thank you. But my concern is that this nation thinks that building an entire system around martyrdom is the way to go — that if you aren’t spending 80 hours a week and thousands of your own dollars, you can’t be an effective Title I school teacher. (And yes, I know that it’s not THAT much better in the wealthier districts.) We cannot build a national system on the idea that KIPP and TFA and the 60-70 hour work week is acceptable. It’s not.

So as I watch Jakob and Theo play, stealing a moment where I can both be a dad (you have NO idea how many breaks I’ve taken in writing this entry) and a principal (I’ve answered about ten emails during the writing too,) I have a call to arms for us all.

Every time we see a teacher celebrated for their Herculean efforts, let’s all be sure to ask the following questions:

  • What can be done to support and sustain you?
  • How can we change the system that more people can be as successful as you?
  • How can we create schools where it does not require Herculean efforts to be a successful teacher?

These and other questions were part of my own thoughts as I drove all those miles.  I’m going to throw out one possible solution for supporting and sustaining.  It’s off the cuff and a band-aid at that, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Why doesn’t planning time count towards professional development?  Every teacher does it, every day.  That means that every day they spend a bit of time in reflection on what they did and what they are going to do.  For most of them, they are alone when they do this reflection, sitting at their desks, jogging around the block or driving to the grocery store.

Most of the teachers I talked to have to turn in some kind of written plan to the office but they do not receive any feedback on it.  No conversation at all, in fact, for something they do every day of the year.  Maybe instead of having them sit through more drive by training, we could have them work together to reflect on their plans, to link their professional learning and growth to their professional practice.  Because they ARE reflecting, thinking all the time about their plans, but they are doing it all on their own time and alone.  Put them together, give them a chance to share, and suddenly all the individual energy comes together.  Rather than having a faculty meeting to tell people things that could be shared via email, have a faculty meeting that starts with the question, “What worked in your classroom today?  What didn’t work?”  Simple questions with complex answers.

You don’t need a consultant or even a model; you just need time for talking.  Time for exploring. Time for learning.  Is that so much to ask?