Category Archives: teaching

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.

Dazed and Confused

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I’m not really sure where to start to respond to this article about education and technology in Idaho.  Here are a couple notable quotes with my reactions:

Last year, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law that requires all high school students to take some online classes to graduate, and that the students and their teachers be given laptops or tablets. The idea was to establish Idaho’s schools as a high-tech vanguard.

To help pay for these programs, the state may have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators. And the plan envisions a fundamental change in the role of teachers, making them less a lecturer at the front of the room and more of a guide helping students through lessons delivered on computers.

Certainly encouraging less lecturing is a worthy goal but making teachers a guide to computer based lessons doesn’t sound much better. Do these lessons support collaboration and problem solving? And, if the students don’t learn, will the computer be blamed?

Teachers are resisting, saying that they prefer to employ technology as it suits their own teaching methods and styles. Some feel they are judged on how much they make use of technology, regardless of whether it improves learning. Some teachers in the Los Angeles public schools, for example, complain that the form that supervisors use to evaluate teachers has a check box on whether they use technology, suggesting that they must use it for its own sake.

Whenever I read a quote like this, I’m reminded of my first supervisor when I taught high school English. After attending a workshop about using the overhead projector to support instruction, she decreed that we use the overhead in some way every day. While I was already using the overhead to support writing instruction, I certainly did not use it every day just as I did not use any pedagogical practice or resource every day. My resources and instruction were based on the objectives and content. I’ll admit it: I even delivered a lecture now and then if it seemed appropriate.

Some of her views are echoed by other teachers, like Doug StanWiens, 44, a popular teacher of advanced history and economics at Boise High School. He is a heavy technology user, relying on an interactive whiteboard and working with his students to build a Web site that documents local architecture, a project he says will create a resource for the community.

“I firmly believe that technology is a tool for teachers to use,” he said. “It’s time for teachers to get moving on it.” But he also spoke last year on the capital steps in opposition to the state’s program, which he said he saw as a poorly thought-out, one-size-fits-all approach.

Idaho should be grateful that it has such thoughtful educators and might take a lesson from them about differentiation. The state is assuming that ALL kids would learn better on a computer just as they assume that ALL teachers lecture. Perhaps the training could focus on differentiation and providing kids with instruction that helps them learn not that makes a state look high tech.

For his part, Governor Otter said that putting technology into students’ hands was the only way to prepare them for the work force. Giving them easy access to a wealth of facts and resources online allows them to develop critical thinking skills, he said, which is what employers want the most.

This is the quote that led to my title: I just don’t see the connection between easy access to facts leads to developing critical thinking skills. Isn’t it what you DO with those facts that leads to critical thinking? There’s where quality teachers can really make the difference.

 

Why Not Be Great?

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That’s the question Seth Godin asks in his blog post today.  His whole post is a celebration of innovation and revolution.

Before you finish this paragraph, you have the power to change everything that’s to come. And you can do that by asking yourself (and your colleagues) the one question that every organization and every individual needs to ask today: Why not be great?

The first step is to define what it means to be “great” in whatever you do.  For my purposes, I’m going to start small: with the course I teach for pre-service undergraduates.  I think a great course would help students see how technology can support student learning in powerful ways by modeling that belief.  I think a great course would introduce students to a professional learning network that would live beyond the course.  Bring them into my world and hope they find it welcoming enough to want to stay even after May.

Each semester, the course gets more and more student-centered as I try to model the kind of pedagogy I would like them to adopt.  I haven’t created the course for the spring but am considering a complete project-based approach in which small groups become experts in the use of technology to support instruction in a content area.  For each area of focus (writing & publishing, data visualization, gaming & interaction, collaboration), they will research and share the resources and information they find with their classmates and create a guidebook for their particular area.  My role will be to guide them in their exploration, providing foundations in educational theory and practice such as TPACK.

In addition, I want them to see how social media including Diigo and Twitter can provide them access to a larger network of teachers.  Lani Ritter-Hall highlights research showing that Professionally Engaged teachers are more likely to adopt the kinds of pedagogy that I support and technology is one way to support that engagement.

I have a few weeks before the semester begins to organize my ideas a bit better and put together a course site. I think I’ll start from scratch rather than trying to build on past courses as a way to challenge my own thinking about topics and activities.  I invite your ideas as well…I have a chance to mold the minds of impressionable new teachers, what should I be doing that will help make them great?

Learners Vs Completers

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Dear Fall 2011 Students:

We will be spending the next four months together. I have a simple goal: I want this to be an engaging, thought provoking class that helps you find your own path through the educational technology maze. We’re going to tackle some big questions together; I have ideas but no answers and I want you to have a chance to formulate and share your own answers knowing they will evolve throughout your program and into your first placement.

This class is much more about the learning than the producing although there are some products for you to create, several of them requiring collaboration with your classmates. You’ll also have the chance to go in depth into a topic of your own choosing and figure out how to use the web to support your research and your sharing of that research. Since it is not possible to “cover” every technology that might be available to you, I think it makes more sense to take an in depth look at some typical technologies that have educational potential. Plus, you’ll plug into a professional learning network who can offer support when you are looking for new ideas, technologies and resources for your classroom.

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Teach Balance Rather Than Zero Tolerance

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I ran across a new movement, advertised via social media, advocating “unplugging” during certain times of the day. Evidently, more and more people are choosing to disconnect for specified periods of time to see what it’s like to go without and then musing about it on the web, once they’ve reestablished connection. Most, amazingly enough, found productive things to do and were able to resist the urge to tell everyone else via the network.

I was reminded of two things: the “turn off the tv week” that I used to sponsor in the late great days before the Internet and the actions many schools are starting to take towards social media. These disconnect movements–whether done in the name of personal challenge, family togetherness or student safety–all seem to suggest that there is something suspect about our relationship to social media just as, in earlier generations, we worried about our television viewing. So I find it particularly ironic that the Good 30-Day Challenge folks who are unplugging at 8 PM do allow you to use your computer as a television.

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Thank You, Jon Stewart!

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While I am sure he doesn’t remember, I once threw a soccer ball to Jon Stewart when he played for William and Mary. I was a ball girl, running up and down the field to catch and return soccer balls. Reminiscing aside, he is currently my hero in his willingness to point out how ridiculous it is to think that we are going to balance the budget on the backs of teachers and other public workers.

Fighting Old Battles

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As a former teacher union member and ardent supporter of educators, I am watching the events in Wisconsin with great interest. I can’t claim great union support when I started my career; I really only joined the union because I was required to pay 80% of the fees anyway since I benefited from the contract negotiated by the union. I figured I’d chip in the extra 20% and get some of the perks like insurance and legal representation.

I saw the power of the union when, in my second year, my district went out on a six-week strike. Collective bargaining helped boost our salaries but also made sure that we were paid for all the extra work we did in support of the kids outside of our teaching responsibilities: coaching teams, advising clubs, and organizing community events. When I moved to a non-union state, I saw how the lack of the ability to negotiate meant that pay was low, extra work was uncompensated (and yet teachers still did it), and administrators made decisions without ever feeling the need to consult professional staff. Association membership was low as well, with some veterans afraid to join because of potential retaliation. I couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would retaliate against an organization that had no power anyway.

With that perspective as well as recent frustration with the National Education Association who seems unwilling to stand up for the professionalism of and personal sacrifice made by public educators in this country, I find myself in a quandary. I could dive into the debate: that the Wisconsin governor is using fiscal crisis to break the back of the unions, something he said he was going to do when he ran. I could cheer on my fellow teachers who are trying to remind their neighbors that they are not some elite group that has gotten rich on the backs of their fellow tax payers, who struggled with the decision to abandon their classrooms to protest and yet in doing so provide a powerful example of citizenship to their students, and who will return to those classrooms to again spend their days with the next generation, doing a sometimes thankless job with the spirit and dedication that we have come to expect and yet take for granted.

But, there is another part of me that wonders if we are watching an old battle, based on foundations that are crumbling. More and more teachers can be found outside the usual systems. As schools discover money savings related to online learning, they may choose to do an end run around more traditional educators and create more adjunct-like relationships with their professional staff. Unionists will shake their heads since adjuncting is often seen as the sweat shop of the higher ed world, but adjuncts also have a great level of freedom in terms of their schedules and their responsibilities. I love adjuncting because it means I get to teach, putting my energy into developing courses and working with my students, rather than worrying about getting published or attending faculty meetings.

Do I miss the security of a full time job with its benefits? Not really…I’m willing to make the trade off of less security for more freedom. And, as I look across the landscape, I don’t see the same kind of ongoing security that drove my father’s generation to leave home each day in order to toil for another. Teachers are getting laid off, something that was unthinkable in the past; collective bargaining is under attack; and benefits are no longer a given when you get a job. And in the worst slap in the face of all, workers who devoted their lives to a company are losing their retirement and looking at the potential of a second career as a Wal Mart greeter.

Indeed, foundations are crumbling and the protesters on both sides in Wisconsin don’t seem to understand that they are arguing over the past rather than looking towards the future. If the educators do manage to save collective bargaining, it will be something of a Pyrrhic victory as states and localities find that they simply can’t meet the agreements that they have made.

The Science of Not Knowing

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NOTE: This is a cross post from my mostly about reading blog In One Place. But the ideas about science are important for educators as well.

There are moments when reading and real life come together. Not to be too dramatic: but now is one of those times. As oil spews into the Gulf of Mexico, my companions for the journey are Annie Dillard and Wendell Berry. And, both of them make the same essential point about science: the real power and terror of science is that neither doesn’t nor can know everything.

For Dillard, the not-knowing can be seen in the natural world, in something as seemingly simple as an elm leaf:

Or again, there are, as I have said, six million leaves on a big elm. All right…but they are toothed, and the teeth themselves are toothed. How many notches and barbs is that to the world. In and out go the intricate leaf edges, and “don’t nobody know why.” All the theories botanists have devised to explain the functions of various leaf shapes tumble under an avalanche of inconsistencies. They simply don’t know, can’t imagine.

Berry’s comments are in response to Edward O. Wilson, who in his book Consilience, celebrates science and discounts the possibilities of learning in and from mystery:

He understands mystery as attributable entirely to human ignorance, and thereby appropriates it for the future of human science; in his formula, the unknown = the-to-be-known…If modern science is a religion, then one of its presiding deities must be Sherlock Holmes. To the modern scientist as to the great detective, every mystery is a problem, and every problem can be solved. A mystery can exist only because of human ignorance, and human ignorance is always redeemable. the appropriate response is not deference or respect, let alone reverence, but pursuit of “the answer”.

Don’t nobody know why…and yet we teach students that there are answers. I am outraged that BP was not required to have a solution to what was clearly a potential problem. I suppose we can blame it on a failure of the imagination but the cynic in me can’t help but blame it on a desire for profit. And an unwavering belief in science to solve any problem. I, of course, am hoping along with everyone else that this IS a problem science can solve, and quickly, but at what cost?

BP, with its string of abuses, clearly has not real concern for the world community other than as a market for its oil. Berry points out that science is often conducted with economics rather than community in mind and quotes Wilson’s description of the “cardinal principle in the conduct of scientific research: Find a paradigm for which you can raise money and attack with every method of anaylsis at your disposal.” Berry goes on:

This principle, in effect, makes the patron the prescriber of the work to be done. It would seem to eliminate the scientist as a person or community member who would judge whether or not the work ought to be done. It removes the scientist from the human and ecological circumstances in which the work will have its effect and which should provide one of the standards by which the work is to be judged; the scientist is thus isolated, by this principle of following patronage, in a career with a budget.

Hmmm…as I typed those last words, I realized how hard I was being on scientists, even if I was only channeling Berry. I’m blaming scientists for the flaws in a system that is much larger than them just as teachers often get blamed for failed reforms for which they had no responsibility. I imagine some scientist, in a planning meeting for the platform, quietly suggesting that this could be a problem. His solution, however, did not meet the cost analysis: what was the chance of this happening and how much would it cost? What the number crunchers failed to consider, however, was the cost if it DID happen! This could ruin BP. I don’t think anyone has the heart to bail them out.

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.

Teaching, teaching, teaching

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I am teaching three courses this semester. Two are face to face and one is online. I’ve taught the undergraduate face to face course for more than five years. It’s the typical “tech” class that pre-service teachers have always had to take. When I took it some 22 years ago, I learned about using film projectors and got a brief introduction to computers through one class period devoted to logo. Even then, I was hooked, and my final project was created on my Tandy 1000 using a free database program to develop a gradebook.

Fast forward nearly a quarter of a century (how DID I get this old??), and the course covers everything from Inspiration to Google Earth to Quest Atlantis. In more recent semesters, I’ve designed the course around the concept of TPACK–Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge–to help students see the relationship of technology to the other areas of their learning. I like the course and enjoy spending time with 20-somethings who are excited about becoming teachers. I haven’t met with this year’s group yet. Monday is our first class. The section I teach focuses on elementary education and this semester I have several men in the course, which is unusual.

The two other courses–both graduate and both focusing on educational technology–are new to me. One is online and one is face to face. I developed the syllabus for the latter. The former has already been developed and I am working as a facilitator. But, the real difference I’ve discovered is how quickly I can bond with the students. I met with my face to face class last night, and I already love it. I knew some of the participants prior to the class so we settled in pretty well. And for the few I didn’t know, I already feel like I have a sense of how we will work together.

Even though the online course started a day earlier, I still don’t have much of a sense of the students. A few of them have posted to the discussion forums, but none have posted their pictures yet nor completed the audio assignment. So, I have no idea what they look or sound like! I’ve got names and email addresses and that’s it. I’ve been checking in several times a day to see what’s happening and am disappointed when there are no new posts for me to review. It is going to be a slow process and I am eager for Monday morning to come so I’ll at least know what they look like, well that is if they actually post pictures of themselves. The course creator gave them the option of posting any picture and I thought about changing that but didn’t want to immediately go in and start rearranging. So, I’m hoping most of them choose to post their own pictures rather than Marge Simpson or a sports team logo. That tells me something about them, certainly, but doesn’t help me really visualize them.

It promises to be an interesting semester! My face to face grad course participants will be keeping blogs and I’ll be posting more here as well to keep up with them.