A series of chats between Stephen Heppell and Marc Prensky (the 'digital native' guy) has been posted on YouTube recently. People tend to ask Stephen some difficult questions about the use of digital technologies in the classroom, and his responses are always thoughtful. In each of these videos the two respond to a question - asked via Twitter or Facebook - things like 'What is the role of the teacher in 21st century learning?' or 'How do we encourage children to be brave, to be wrong and to ask questions?'. Stephen's and Marc's responses offer much insight, and much that is challenging.
The one I was first drawn to was Marc Prensky - How can we encourage quality storytelling in our children?
There is a lot that is interesting here, and some that I don't agree with.
Thursday 11 November 2010
Thursday 30 September 2010
Private parts
My more perceptive readers will have noticed that there is no picture to the right, and may even have guessed that Alice is not the name I go by In Real Life. Yup, Google has more data about me than any real person, including anyone interested enough to be reading this. Seems I'm not really following Marco Torres' good advice around building up a digital portfolio. But the reasons I haven't are fairly simple. I don't want to identify where I work, simply because I don't want to have to concentrate on being 'on message' all the time.
Lucky I have options...
Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village
...but hopeful I won't need them
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/password_reuse.png
Lucky I have options...
Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village
...but hopeful I won't need them
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/password_reuse.png
Monday 20 September 2010
What is Teaching? Hirst, 1974
I was flicking though a book at the weekend by a professor of education at the University of Cambridge, when I came to a chapter called "What is Teaching?". Towards the end of this essay, Professor Hirst observes,
Hirst distinguishes between two understandings of "teaching", as follows -
There is an obvious flaw here. If you have taught the student, and the student hasn't learnt, then you haven't actually taught them. There is no difference according to this definition between 'teach' and 'intend to teach' or 'try to teach'. If I go to 'teach' my kindergarten class about Wittgenstein, and they end up asleep or wandering off, an observer might state that I tried to teach philosophy, but I didn't teach. In this case, I didn't take into account the context of the learners - i.e. that they are five years old and have no idea what I'm talking about.
Hirst would ascribe my failure to an exception to his definition: the fact that teaching implies that the learning is possible, and in this case it wasn't. But, in every case in which the teacher 'teaches' and the learner doesn't learn, there must be some reason why. As a teacher I would want to be able to identify this, as the first step towards enabling the student to learn. And the thing is that we know so much more about learning now than we did even in Hirst's heyday. What may have appeared to Hirst as a failure on the part of the student to learn, might now be explained by the fact that that is not how that student can learn. How People Learn tells us that students' preconceptions need to be discovered, engaged, and if necessary, challenged. They need to develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge that they can organise in a framework for easy retrieval. And a metacognitive approach will help them to take control of their own learning. All of these aspects would need to be taken into account.
I think that Hirst may be reflecting a malaise about teaching and learning current in the 1970s, when classroom walls were being torn down in favour of open learning spaces. The problem was that no-one knew what to do in these spaces, and this led to a search for concrete answers to questions such as Hirst's. But simply going through the motions of teaching is not teaching. Students can all learn, and teaching is doing whatever it takes to make that happen.
Paul H Hirst, "What is Teaching?" in Knowledge and the Curriculum: A Collection of Philosophical Papers (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974) pp 101 - 115.
I am not even sure that successful learning is a criterion for good teaching (p.114).What a prat I must be - I always thought that learning was the whole point of teaching. So what does Hirst think teaching is - let alone good teaching? How does he come to the conclusion that it doesn't necessarily involve learning? And is his theory still relevant?
Hirst distinguishes between two understandings of "teaching", as follows -
The most common [meaning of "teaching"] relates to the case in which a person may teach in the fullest sense of that word and yet, in spite of the intention and the appropriateness of the activities involved, the pupils may learn absolutely nothing. ... [The second] involves the implication that not only has there been the intention to bring about learning, but that the pupil has in fact learnt what was intended. (p.106)I suppose in medicine the equivalent would be the difference between treating the patient and curing the patient - treating is the process, but curing implies success. The second sense is the 'taught' in "Mr Miyagi taught me karate" - which assumes that I now know karate, and Mr Miyagi did whatever it took to instill this in me. Sounds good, but Hirst explicitly discounts the second definition, and concentrates on the first, which he asserts is the most common meaning. He seems to be concerned about situations where the teacher is ticking all the right boxes - things I suppose like showing rather than telling, allowing opportunities for the learner to discover for themselves - and yet the learning aim of the lesson doesn't seem to stick. Surely the process that the teacher is engaged in is 'teaching', he thinks - what else would it be?
There is an obvious flaw here. If you have taught the student, and the student hasn't learnt, then you haven't actually taught them. There is no difference according to this definition between 'teach' and 'intend to teach' or 'try to teach'. If I go to 'teach' my kindergarten class about Wittgenstein, and they end up asleep or wandering off, an observer might state that I tried to teach philosophy, but I didn't teach. In this case, I didn't take into account the context of the learners - i.e. that they are five years old and have no idea what I'm talking about.
Hirst would ascribe my failure to an exception to his definition: the fact that teaching implies that the learning is possible, and in this case it wasn't. But, in every case in which the teacher 'teaches' and the learner doesn't learn, there must be some reason why. As a teacher I would want to be able to identify this, as the first step towards enabling the student to learn. And the thing is that we know so much more about learning now than we did even in Hirst's heyday. What may have appeared to Hirst as a failure on the part of the student to learn, might now be explained by the fact that that is not how that student can learn. How People Learn tells us that students' preconceptions need to be discovered, engaged, and if necessary, challenged. They need to develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge that they can organise in a framework for easy retrieval. And a metacognitive approach will help them to take control of their own learning. All of these aspects would need to be taken into account.
I think that Hirst may be reflecting a malaise about teaching and learning current in the 1970s, when classroom walls were being torn down in favour of open learning spaces. The problem was that no-one knew what to do in these spaces, and this led to a search for concrete answers to questions such as Hirst's. But simply going through the motions of teaching is not teaching. Students can all learn, and teaching is doing whatever it takes to make that happen.
Paul H Hirst, "What is Teaching?" in Knowledge and the Curriculum: A Collection of Philosophical Papers (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974) pp 101 - 115.
Thursday 9 September 2010
Beating the Odds (ABC, September 2010)
Continuing yesterday's news round up - there is a great piece here from the ABC, showing how education can give opportunities to kids in at risk areas - again out here in the west.
Wednesday 8 September 2010
They were different classes, now they're one community (SMH, 6/9/10) and Bad mark on school funding (SMH, 9/9/10)
An article in Monday's Herald about how connected learning communities are leading to student centred learning in Western Sydney public schools. Says the principal, ''It's shocked some of the teachers just how enthused some of the students have become".
And an article in today's Herald, with the big news of how little Australia spends on public education, and how much on private, in comparison with other countries.
And an article in today's Herald, with the big news of how little Australia spends on public education, and how much on private, in comparison with other countries.
Tuesday 7 September 2010
Testing times
An interesting article in the NY Times talks about the value of assessment for learning. Not the formative assessment that Hattie talks about - giving feedback to the teacher on how their teaching is going, but just how doing the right kind of test can itself help the student to learn.
Sunday 29 August 2010
Stephen Heppell: 21st Century Learning and its Environments
I'll put up my observations from my day with Stephen Heppell progressively, because they are in note form at the moment. First up are Stephen Heppell's top practical tips for enabling learning in today's environment
Think about how you celebrate learning, so that learning is on display. Create a sense of a place of learning:
- Label the trees with their names – more like a campus
- Get the children’s work on display – on screens, on screens leading up to the school, some schools take out billboards in the local town.
- Run a school radio station
Listen to the voice of the learners.
- Ask students how they learn better - they often have a very good idea.
- 21st century learning is ‘fuzzier at the edges’. “All the edges are a little softer”
- Harnessing kids’ capability to teach staff
- How can we work with others in the global community and hear their voices? simple eg - video screens up in the playground streaming live video to and from a sister school in Japan.
Make the learning space more playful, more personalised.
- Important to think about the physical environment - makes learning more memorable. Colour is great, in secondary or primary.
- Don't stick stuff to glass. Look on the walls - not just in the classroom - and make sure they aren't covered in lists of things you can't do.
- Get rid of projectors. For the same price you can have multiple flat screens that can be placed around a learning space, and have the option to give kids control over what they see.
Display the process of learning in a way that invites you in.
- Show the learning as it is happening, and invited feedback.
- Display drafts.
Think about the exterior learning spaces too.
- How can the bus turning area be used pedagogically?
- Label the trees
- put screens around outside
- Use video capture outside – places where you can easily capture – still camera that captures you as you go past. Great for sport.
Friday 27 August 2010
Stephen Heppell: Learning is escaping from its boxes
I worked with Stephen Heppell for two days last year. More accurately, I listened in to Stephen talking to a group of high school teachers, and then walked with him around their school as he visited classes and stuck his head around corners. I enjoyed myself immensely, and I've been thinking again about some of the things he said, in light of Marco's ideas last month. The time in classrooms with the students showed how well Stephen, and the students themselves, were tuned to the students' needs - especially their need to be engaged with learning. Some of the teachers read this as 'learning needs to be fun', in opposition to 'learning needs content and learning content is hard work' - there was a fair level of opposition to Stephen's ideas and I thought he addressed their concerns brilliantly. I'll have to see if I can post some of my notes here.
Anyway, this post was sparked by a recently posted video of Stephen:
Stephen Heppell, like Marco Torres, emphasises that the challenge, and the imperative, around new technologies is asking the right questions. We have to think about how learning can change now that we have these technologies, simply because this is the world now. The genie is well out of the box.
Anyway, this post was sparked by a recently posted video of Stephen:
Stephen Heppell, like Marco Torres, emphasises that the challenge, and the imperative, around new technologies is asking the right questions. We have to think about how learning can change now that we have these technologies, simply because this is the world now. The genie is well out of the box.
A switch off device is a switched off child, and maybe the devil makes work for idle thumbs. If we don't give them things to do with their phones, they'll think of things, and maybe the things they think of aren't quite as smart as the ones we might have suggested.
Wednesday 11 August 2010
Teacher training
I've just been invited to assess high school students' applications for a university-taught teaching program. The students have to explain why teaching appeals to them as a career, what they think it involves, and what it means to be a good teacher. Not easy questions - and I'll have to answer very similar ones when I apply to study teaching - but the students have some great answers. Many of them mention passion, organisation, effective communication, getting and sustaining students' interest, integrating ICT, and discipline. Some appear to have reflected deeply, mentioning things like identifying what some students need more help with than others, assessing their own delivery style, continuing to learn, aligning ICT and pedagogy (one of them notes that computers and ICT are much more effective when they are there to support the teaching - sounds good to me), and learning from their students.
Tuesday 10 August 2010
Marco Torres: Good learners are givers
A couple of weeks ago now I spent a day with Marco Torres, sometime education advisor to Barack Obama, and (even more impressively) occasional director of Mythbusters. He spoke about how important it is for learners to connect with others, in order to share and co-create knowledge to solve real life, real world problems. The end product is evidence of their learning, but these connections, made through communicative technology, leave a digital trace which is also evidence of their learning.
Some points that I took away from the day -
Problems are bigger than institutions, and so are the solutions
You need a critical mass to make a difference, but it doesn’t have to be big or at your school - it can be across the world. Your colleagues don’t have to be in your physical space. US Department of Education is funding ideas not schools.
Marco was working with the World Bank. At the World Bank conference, even though it was not an education conference, all speakers said that solutions must come from kids. Adults have hang-ups that prevent them from taking risks and moving faster.
Sharing is learning, sharing is evidence of learning, sharing is evidence of passion for learning.
Using connective technologies to learn and to share learning leaves a digital trace. This can be very powerful as evidence of learning. The more hobbies you have the more iPhone apps you have, the more social networks, and the more blogs, YouTube etc you take part in, the more evidence you have that you are a continuous, self directed learner. The question that prospective school employees should be asked is, what is the evidence that you learn? If a prospective employee is really great, they don’t need a resume. Resumes are a list of nouns. It is important to hire based on verbs. Prospective employers look on the internet for what you are actually doing.
Your online activity is also evidence that you love what you do. This is important because people who love what they do work faster and also have higher levels of innovation. This is how Google hires, and how Google works.
Adults are mostly takers in an online environment. Kids are givers. Good learners are givers. Somebody who is a voracious learner is a voracious sharer: they take the information to create something. This thing that they create is evidence of their learning, and so is the process if they capture it.
This is different - it may cause discomfort. But when people are uncomfortable they have reason to learn.
Problem solving is key for 21st century learning. The important thing is to ask the right questions
Given the technology that we have, the important thing is to think about the kinds of problems we can solve.
Marco gave the example of a team challenge, in which every table was given a sheet of ‘logic problems’ e.g. ‘16 O in a P’ → 16 ounces in a pound. Marco used his iPhone to solve the problems, and finished first. Some other teachers there said, ‘That’s cheating!’ But how was this cheating? The process was not actually problem solving: the solution rested on how many people at the table had already learnt the information and could recall it. Marco just had a bigger table. Actual problem solving would be the setting of more problems.
The good questions that should be asked, that technology makes it possible to ask, include comparative analysis questions (where you have to compare data that are now easily available, or creatable - see below). These are crucial questions for today. For example: Civilian vs soldier deaths in WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq - what do these tell us? If you could choose who was on your money, on what would you base your choices? If you could plan cities where they are, now, would the rules be the same as they were when they were built?
Creating data through the use of connective technology - after the New Orleans floods, Marco asked the question: Are levies wider in richer neighbourhoods? Students took the pictures and video, and created a rich database in very little time. When using connective technology, Marco notes that we need more time for reflections to get great questions.
A teacher told kids to go on YouTube and find a village that needed help. They found a village in Bangladesh that needed water. He challenged kids to solve the problem: how do you get water to the village?
Solution: They designed and created a 60 gallon barrel with hooks to drag the barrel.
Problem: They had also had a tapeworm problem.
Solution: Another school developed a tablet that kills the tapeworm as the water is rolling along in the barrel.
Problem: you can’t eat the bits of the tablet that come off in the barrel - it makes you sick.
Solution: kid at a third school stole tablet holder for putting a detergent tablet in the dryer, and adapted it for the barrel.
→ 3 schools solved the problem through the global issues network
http://www.global-issues-network.org/
Look for questions that are both creative and enable better citizenship:
A linking theme coming through the above points is that these activities also enable students to become better, more active citizens of their communities and of the world. Humanitarian design came out of challenge based approach. This involves taking maths and science to solve humanitarian problems.
The questions for challenge based learning (from KeyNote slide):
1.What can you do to solve a real problem? What does the evidence look like?
2.How can you involve students? What can happen if they plan with us?
3.What are some relevant tools strategies to solve it?
4.How will you publish the product and process?
5.What can you do to help convince the yes buts?
6.How will you market the leaning and schooling that just occurred?
7.What is a quick project idea that you could do tomorrow to head in the right direction?
8.Barriers? What are they? How can they be beaten? Problems are perceived not real.
What role does technology play in this journey?
For example: "Say you had the opportunity to make an app for the iPhone – any one you like – what would you create?" Here are some examples of good apps – they are good because they give information that is tailored to the user, and they allow the user to solve problems and to become a better citizen:
MyCongress – wherever I am (based on my gps) it tells me who are the elected officials fo that area. In the past I would have had to go through google. Now it is reformatted for me, for where I am. Everything is there. I can be a better citizen.
Citysourced How do you find the person you need to call e.g. for an abandoned car or broken pipeline or graffiti? Citisourced recognizes that you’ve taken a photo of an abandoned car, and tells you who to call – it can even send them an email, or lots, until the job gets done. Otherwise, because of lack of problem solving, problems remain. Kids can look for the problems and solve them to get points on the app. They become better citizen because of this.
wikiplace Helps find where you are, and connects you to everything you need to know about everything that is around you. eg take a photo of anything and it will tell you about it. The content is provided by users.
Association is key
The number one sign of innovative leaders is their ability to associate. This is association between people, association between ideas, etc. Schools need to promote this.
e.g. a photography assignment - if you tell kids to take a photo of a hat or a tree, they are learning about how the camera operates and how to take good pictures. But tell them to take a picture of sadness, or loneliness, and this increases their figurative language. This is increasing their ability to associate ideas, even if they don't have the skills to write an essay about it.
Some points that I took away from the day -
Problems are bigger than institutions, and so are the solutions
You need a critical mass to make a difference, but it doesn’t have to be big or at your school - it can be across the world. Your colleagues don’t have to be in your physical space. US Department of Education is funding ideas not schools.
Marco was working with the World Bank. At the World Bank conference, even though it was not an education conference, all speakers said that solutions must come from kids. Adults have hang-ups that prevent them from taking risks and moving faster.
Sharing is learning, sharing is evidence of learning, sharing is evidence of passion for learning.
Using connective technologies to learn and to share learning leaves a digital trace. This can be very powerful as evidence of learning. The more hobbies you have the more iPhone apps you have, the more social networks, and the more blogs, YouTube etc you take part in, the more evidence you have that you are a continuous, self directed learner. The question that prospective school employees should be asked is, what is the evidence that you learn? If a prospective employee is really great, they don’t need a resume. Resumes are a list of nouns. It is important to hire based on verbs. Prospective employers look on the internet for what you are actually doing.
Your online activity is also evidence that you love what you do. This is important because people who love what they do work faster and also have higher levels of innovation. This is how Google hires, and how Google works.
Adults are mostly takers in an online environment. Kids are givers. Good learners are givers. Somebody who is a voracious learner is a voracious sharer: they take the information to create something. This thing that they create is evidence of their learning, and so is the process if they capture it.
This is different - it may cause discomfort. But when people are uncomfortable they have reason to learn.
Problem solving is key for 21st century learning. The important thing is to ask the right questions
Given the technology that we have, the important thing is to think about the kinds of problems we can solve.
Marco gave the example of a team challenge, in which every table was given a sheet of ‘logic problems’ e.g. ‘16 O in a P’ → 16 ounces in a pound. Marco used his iPhone to solve the problems, and finished first. Some other teachers there said, ‘That’s cheating!’ But how was this cheating? The process was not actually problem solving: the solution rested on how many people at the table had already learnt the information and could recall it. Marco just had a bigger table. Actual problem solving would be the setting of more problems.
The good questions that should be asked, that technology makes it possible to ask, include comparative analysis questions (where you have to compare data that are now easily available, or creatable - see below). These are crucial questions for today. For example: Civilian vs soldier deaths in WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq - what do these tell us? If you could choose who was on your money, on what would you base your choices? If you could plan cities where they are, now, would the rules be the same as they were when they were built?
Creating data through the use of connective technology - after the New Orleans floods, Marco asked the question: Are levies wider in richer neighbourhoods? Students took the pictures and video, and created a rich database in very little time. When using connective technology, Marco notes that we need more time for reflections to get great questions.
A teacher told kids to go on YouTube and find a village that needed help. They found a village in Bangladesh that needed water. He challenged kids to solve the problem: how do you get water to the village?
Solution: They designed and created a 60 gallon barrel with hooks to drag the barrel.
Problem: They had also had a tapeworm problem.
Solution: Another school developed a tablet that kills the tapeworm as the water is rolling along in the barrel.
Problem: you can’t eat the bits of the tablet that come off in the barrel - it makes you sick.
Solution: kid at a third school stole tablet holder for putting a detergent tablet in the dryer, and adapted it for the barrel.
→ 3 schools solved the problem through the global issues network
http://www.global-issues-network.org/
Look for questions that are both creative and enable better citizenship:
A linking theme coming through the above points is that these activities also enable students to become better, more active citizens of their communities and of the world. Humanitarian design came out of challenge based approach. This involves taking maths and science to solve humanitarian problems.
The questions for challenge based learning (from KeyNote slide):
1.What can you do to solve a real problem? What does the evidence look like?
2.How can you involve students? What can happen if they plan with us?
3.What are some relevant tools strategies to solve it?
4.How will you publish the product and process?
5.What can you do to help convince the yes buts?
6.How will you market the leaning and schooling that just occurred?
7.What is a quick project idea that you could do tomorrow to head in the right direction?
8.Barriers? What are they? How can they be beaten? Problems are perceived not real.
What role does technology play in this journey?
For example: "Say you had the opportunity to make an app for the iPhone – any one you like – what would you create?" Here are some examples of good apps – they are good because they give information that is tailored to the user, and they allow the user to solve problems and to become a better citizen:
MyCongress – wherever I am (based on my gps) it tells me who are the elected officials fo that area. In the past I would have had to go through google. Now it is reformatted for me, for where I am. Everything is there. I can be a better citizen.
Citysourced How do you find the person you need to call e.g. for an abandoned car or broken pipeline or graffiti? Citisourced recognizes that you’ve taken a photo of an abandoned car, and tells you who to call – it can even send them an email, or lots, until the job gets done. Otherwise, because of lack of problem solving, problems remain. Kids can look for the problems and solve them to get points on the app. They become better citizen because of this.
wikiplace Helps find where you are, and connects you to everything you need to know about everything that is around you. eg take a photo of anything and it will tell you about it. The content is provided by users.
Association is key
The number one sign of innovative leaders is their ability to associate. This is association between people, association between ideas, etc. Schools need to promote this.
e.g. a photography assignment - if you tell kids to take a photo of a hat or a tree, they are learning about how the camera operates and how to take good pictures. But tell them to take a picture of sadness, or loneliness, and this increases their figurative language. This is increasing their ability to associate ideas, even if they don't have the skills to write an essay about it.
Friday 30 July 2010
John Hattie: Visible teaching and visible learning
Just listened to a podcast of Peter Mares talking to John Hattie:
NZ expert says schools need good teachers not better infrastructure
16 July 2010
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2010/2956088.htm
Hattie's book Visible Learning http://tiny.cc/fbykw is one of the most inspirational books about education that I've read. It's a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses on the influences on achievement in school students. Hattie lists and explains 138 effects on achievement, covering the influences of the student, home background, school, teacher, curricula, and teaching strategies. He demonstrates the difference that a good teacher can make to student learning outcomes, and looks in to what it is that good teachers do that makes that difference. His point is that pretty much everything that teachers do has a positive effect on student learning - so we need to identify the really influential things that some teachers do, the top-level techniques and strategies that do the most to raise student achievement levels. In this podcast, he tells Peter,
NZ expert says schools need good teachers not better infrastructure
16 July 2010
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2010/2956088.htm
Hattie's book Visible Learning http://tiny.cc/fbykw is one of the most inspirational books about education that I've read. It's a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses on the influences on achievement in school students. Hattie lists and explains 138 effects on achievement, covering the influences of the student, home background, school, teacher, curricula, and teaching strategies. He demonstrates the difference that a good teacher can make to student learning outcomes, and looks in to what it is that good teachers do that makes that difference. His point is that pretty much everything that teachers do has a positive effect on student learning - so we need to identify the really influential things that some teachers do, the top-level techniques and strategies that do the most to raise student achievement levels. In this podcast, he tells Peter,
"some teachers doing some things, make a dramatic difference, and understanding what those some teachers doing some things is, is really, really the key issue. And for me, it comes back to the mindset that a teacher has about their work. If they think their job is a change agent, they're more likely to be successful. If they think they are a facilitator or a developer or a constructivist, it's kind of hopeless. If they think that their job is to constantly evaluate the impact they're having on kids, that's what makes the difference"In his book, Hattie focuses on feedback - not only to the student, to let them know how their learning is going, but also to teacher, to let them know how their teaching is going.
Monday 21 June 2010
Some readings
Some quick summaries of book chapters, articles and podcasts, for my reference and your amusement...
DeKonty Applegate, Mary, et al, “Will the Real Reader Please Stand Up?”, The Reading Teacher, April 2010.
What is literacy? A pupil who scores well on literacy tests – good at phonics, etc, will not necessarily be able to read text’s deeper meaning, analyse text.
Hammond, Jennifer. “Is Learning to Read and Write the same as Learning To Speak?” in Christie, Frances (eds) Literacy for a Changing World Hawthorn, VIC: Australian Council for Educational Research, 1990, pp. 26-53.
Quick answer: no. To begin with there are similarities, but learning to read and write is in part learning the difference between reading and writing and speaking. Written text has higher lexical density and grammatical complexity, though spoken text can also have many clauses.
William M. Ferriter, “Preparing to Teach Digitally” in Educational Leadership May 2010 vol 67 No 8 ASCD.
“Schools need a new system”. This will have to come in and will include online courses, redesigned teacher evaluation programs to reward innovation and creation of individualized learning environments for students. Instead of leading groups through stand-alone lessons, teachers will match individuals with learning solutions. Digital as well as f2f interactions. Tips:
• Become an active digital learner: eg take part in the conversation in www.classroom20.com, or http://edupln.ning.com to talk about benefits of using digital to customize learning.
• create screencasts (?)
• asynchronous tools like voicethread
• use Skype in classroom
This article seems a bit behind the eight ball. Using Skype in the classroom doesn’t seem too revolutionary. Stephen Heppell talks about this. Screencasts – perhaps worth investigating what these are, but sounds quite structured – like a podcast but through your screen. Webquests sound more like the students deal with ‘real life’ information, rather than an interactive textbook.
Douglas B Reeves, Transforming Professional Development into Student Results, ASCD 2010
Problems:
• Good intentions, or participant endorsement, ≠ good PD. Results have to be measured in student achievement.
• Accountability should not be measured in paperwork. Some planning requirements correlate positively with student results, some have a negative effect, many have no relationship. (ch 3-4)
• the most salient variable in improving student achievement is not the label of the program (‘but we’re already doing PLCs/high yield strategies/learning stories!’) but the degree of implementation of the program: viz 90%+ teachers using these strategies. (ch 5)
• Too many standards = counterproductive (ch 6). Leads to PD being fragmented and unfocussed.
Solutions:
• learning systems that provide ‘accurate, specific, and timely feedback’
• “Four imperatives for effective professional learning that are related to student results: teaching, curriculum, assessment, leadership”. Focus is extremely valuable.
• Teachers should test the hypotheses presented – good professional learning needs to be based on research.
“The most effective principals understand that custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and every adult in the system is a teacher through their behaviour…
“Autopsies do not improve patient health” Yield interesting information, but feedback has to be timely for these students, based on their results. formative assessment.
Learning Standards for Teachers (from this book)
• Understand academic content in the current grade level and the next grade level
• Provide feedback to students in a timely, accurate and effective manner
• Prepare lessons that are engaging, adaptive, and differentiated
• Demonstrate an understanding of the individual needs of each student
Linon, Judith. “‘Cry Me a River’: Can Literature Influence Children’s Attitude to the Environment?’ Primary Educator 1999, 5:1 p.23.
Method: students in 2 schools were given story books with environmental themes – they read them and were read them but no discussion.
Result: No change in attitudes. Students reading story about catching crabs interpreted the story literally as a hide and seek story, not noticing the scared faces of the crabs. They didn’t get much from the story about sea birds because it was boring, with the exception of the albatross story because the teacher got them to measure the wingspan.
Notes:
• Teachers need to plan activities around the books and leads discussion about the theme.
• Teachers must model how to be thoughtful, participatory, questioning and critical readers. Children need to be taught the skills of inquiry process and need chances to practice them: they don’t just ‘come’ from reading. 8yo: “we don’t know what we think about a story until we’ve talked about it”.
• Best to choose engaging stories and talk about the environment in them than choose based on environmental theme.
• Best to choose stories with explicit links between action and consequence for younger/less developed readers.
• Children need to reflect on their feelings to recognize how they influence their decisions.
The digital classroom
13 May 2010 ABC Radio National Future Tense http://www.abc.net.au/rn/futuretense/stories/2010/2885066.htm
• Get students to take active role in learning and teaching about how to use technology. get them to help out teachers with ICT issues.
• Alan November: “...we have ... one-room schoolhouses that come out of the 1800s, where one teacher taught every subject, 8 grades. And the only way to do that is to organise it so that kids teach kids. And the research on that model to this day, shows that one-room schoolhouses get better standardised test scores than classrooms where the teacher delivers everything....”
- Students teaching each other (and the teachers!) always seems to be powerful. Perhaps because students need to fully understand and internalize the knowledge, also because they need to think about how to effectively communicate it – i.e. their audience, and they know the purpose they are communicating it for i.e. to inform another person.
Chris Rogers on problem solving, and using Lego to explore problems:
1) "how do you teach kids to actually formulate the problem? So what are they trying to solve? So a lot of kids, and a lot of adults too, will start solving the problem before they really had clearly stated what the problem is, and so they end up solving the wrong problem. This involves brainstorming, this involves identifying constraints, this involves thinking about your clientele who's actually going to use your product.
2. "Plot a path to that goal. And so that's where the maths and science comes in. How can I predict what's going to happen? So the curvature of my aircraft wing, how curved should it be so that I take off the ground?"
3 "identify that your craft is not going to lead you to your goal and then have you realign your path, or iterate on your solution, so that you can reach the goal you have."
"And the Lego is a great toolset to do that with. Kids get excited when you bring them out. They can build quickly, and easily, it's easy to take things apart when they realise it's not going to work. Some of the stuff that mind-storms brings is not only the ability to animate it, but also the ability to take measurements on it, so you can measure your loads, measure your temperature, you can measure your heart rate, or whatever else it is that you're trying to do so that they can actually do the science research."
"Can a classroom build a whole Lego-town that's completely off the grid? So they have to understand something about wind turbines and the science behind them, how many blades, what blade-angles, they can run a bunch of tests. They have to understand about solar cells and how solar collectors and how to optimise the amount of sunlight coming in to your collector. And they have to understand something about LED lights versus incandescent lights, and energy usage, and they get excited about it because they want to build this town. So by pulling all these different things together, the whole class as one unit builds this complete town, and different kids become experts in different areas, and end up teaching each other in the material."
- I suppose that you could build the town without Lego (and I suppose that unless you are ridiculously rich you would have to) but it would be good to put this together as an extended project – i.e. calculating the different loads, knowing the exact dimensions and weights of the bricks so you could design the buildings and predict what materials you would need to make them. Lego or similar would be useful for that. There are so many areas involved in this – not just the maths/engineering of designing, but the art of designing the architecture, you could cost each item so they have to plan in advance what they will build (but this might stifle creativity??). Could do a unit on cities including the history, each student design a building and produce a report on what it’s for, why they have designed it how they have, how they are going to power it etc. then build it. So much fun.
Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html
Two main points:
1. “patient problem solving” is what is required. When creating word maths problems, don’t give the students a diagram and exactly the information (eg dimensions) required. Better to give them a physical picture or video of the subject (water tank, swimming pool, stairs, measuring jug etc filling up with water) and get them talking about how long it will take to fill up. Then get them to figure out what information they require. students can guess in advance – they have buy in.
2. with modern technology it is so easy to create these resources and to post them on the web.
W. James Popham, Transformative Assessment ASCD 2008 Alexandria VA USA.
Read Friday 4th June 2010
Defines formative assessment as:
Formative assessment is a planned process in which assessment-elicited evidence of students’ status is used by teachers to adjust their ongoing instructional procedures or by students to adjust their current learning tactics. (p6)
No such thing as “a formative test” – tests can be used as part of the formative process, but will only be part of the process. 7
assessment doesn’t have to be tests.7
not a matter of looking at test results and doing something different next time – modification needs to be now, on the spot, for these students.
formative ≠ periodic assessment
READ: Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998a). Assessment and Classroom Learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 5(1), 7-73. – the meta-analysis which originally supported and popularized formative assessment.
o Formative assessment raises achievement of all students but particularly low-achieving students. Reduces achievement gap. 19
o No negative effects found from formative assessment
Learning Progressions: / aka task analysis / aka progress map 25
A Learning Progression is a sequenced set of subskills and bodies of enabling knowledge that, it is believed, students must master en route to mastering a target curricular aim – typically a skill, rather than a body of knowledge. Eg the ability to write a persuasive essay or the ability to display a complex set of data in tables, figures, or graphs; or the ability to find a solution to a real world problem in maths involving the use of two or more operations.
A body of enabling knowledge is a set of facts or info a student must memorise or understand
DeKonty Applegate, Mary, et al, “Will the Real Reader Please Stand Up?”, The Reading Teacher, April 2010.
What is literacy? A pupil who scores well on literacy tests – good at phonics, etc, will not necessarily be able to read text’s deeper meaning, analyse text.
Hammond, Jennifer. “Is Learning to Read and Write the same as Learning To Speak?” in Christie, Frances (eds) Literacy for a Changing World Hawthorn, VIC: Australian Council for Educational Research, 1990, pp. 26-53.
Quick answer: no. To begin with there are similarities, but learning to read and write is in part learning the difference between reading and writing and speaking. Written text has higher lexical density and grammatical complexity, though spoken text can also have many clauses.
William M. Ferriter, “Preparing to Teach Digitally” in Educational Leadership May 2010 vol 67 No 8 ASCD.
“Schools need a new system”. This will have to come in and will include online courses, redesigned teacher evaluation programs to reward innovation and creation of individualized learning environments for students. Instead of leading groups through stand-alone lessons, teachers will match individuals with learning solutions. Digital as well as f2f interactions. Tips:
• Become an active digital learner: eg take part in the conversation in www.classroom20.com, or http://edupln.ning.com to talk about benefits of using digital to customize learning.
• create screencasts (?)
• asynchronous tools like voicethread
• use Skype in classroom
This article seems a bit behind the eight ball. Using Skype in the classroom doesn’t seem too revolutionary. Stephen Heppell talks about this. Screencasts – perhaps worth investigating what these are, but sounds quite structured – like a podcast but through your screen. Webquests sound more like the students deal with ‘real life’ information, rather than an interactive textbook.
Douglas B Reeves, Transforming Professional Development into Student Results, ASCD 2010
Problems:
• Good intentions, or participant endorsement, ≠ good PD. Results have to be measured in student achievement.
• Accountability should not be measured in paperwork. Some planning requirements correlate positively with student results, some have a negative effect, many have no relationship. (ch 3-4)
• the most salient variable in improving student achievement is not the label of the program (‘but we’re already doing PLCs/high yield strategies/learning stories!’) but the degree of implementation of the program: viz 90%+ teachers using these strategies. (ch 5)
• Too many standards = counterproductive (ch 6). Leads to PD being fragmented and unfocussed.
Solutions:
• learning systems that provide ‘accurate, specific, and timely feedback’
• “Four imperatives for effective professional learning that are related to student results: teaching, curriculum, assessment, leadership”. Focus is extremely valuable.
• Teachers should test the hypotheses presented – good professional learning needs to be based on research.
“The most effective principals understand that custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and every adult in the system is a teacher through their behaviour…
“Autopsies do not improve patient health” Yield interesting information, but feedback has to be timely for these students, based on their results. formative assessment.
Learning Standards for Teachers (from this book)
• Understand academic content in the current grade level and the next grade level
• Provide feedback to students in a timely, accurate and effective manner
• Prepare lessons that are engaging, adaptive, and differentiated
• Demonstrate an understanding of the individual needs of each student
Linon, Judith. “‘Cry Me a River’: Can Literature Influence Children’s Attitude to the Environment?’ Primary Educator 1999, 5:1 p.23.
Method: students in 2 schools were given story books with environmental themes – they read them and were read them but no discussion.
Result: No change in attitudes. Students reading story about catching crabs interpreted the story literally as a hide and seek story, not noticing the scared faces of the crabs. They didn’t get much from the story about sea birds because it was boring, with the exception of the albatross story because the teacher got them to measure the wingspan.
Notes:
• Teachers need to plan activities around the books and leads discussion about the theme.
• Teachers must model how to be thoughtful, participatory, questioning and critical readers. Children need to be taught the skills of inquiry process and need chances to practice them: they don’t just ‘come’ from reading. 8yo: “we don’t know what we think about a story until we’ve talked about it”.
• Best to choose engaging stories and talk about the environment in them than choose based on environmental theme.
• Best to choose stories with explicit links between action and consequence for younger/less developed readers.
• Children need to reflect on their feelings to recognize how they influence their decisions.
The digital classroom
13 May 2010 ABC Radio National Future Tense http://www.abc.net.au/rn/futuretense/stories/2010/2885066.htm
• Get students to take active role in learning and teaching about how to use technology. get them to help out teachers with ICT issues.
• Alan November: “...we have ... one-room schoolhouses that come out of the 1800s, where one teacher taught every subject, 8 grades. And the only way to do that is to organise it so that kids teach kids. And the research on that model to this day, shows that one-room schoolhouses get better standardised test scores than classrooms where the teacher delivers everything....”
- Students teaching each other (and the teachers!) always seems to be powerful. Perhaps because students need to fully understand and internalize the knowledge, also because they need to think about how to effectively communicate it – i.e. their audience, and they know the purpose they are communicating it for i.e. to inform another person.
Chris Rogers on problem solving, and using Lego to explore problems:
1) "how do you teach kids to actually formulate the problem? So what are they trying to solve? So a lot of kids, and a lot of adults too, will start solving the problem before they really had clearly stated what the problem is, and so they end up solving the wrong problem. This involves brainstorming, this involves identifying constraints, this involves thinking about your clientele who's actually going to use your product.
2. "Plot a path to that goal. And so that's where the maths and science comes in. How can I predict what's going to happen? So the curvature of my aircraft wing, how curved should it be so that I take off the ground?"
3 "identify that your craft is not going to lead you to your goal and then have you realign your path, or iterate on your solution, so that you can reach the goal you have."
"And the Lego is a great toolset to do that with. Kids get excited when you bring them out. They can build quickly, and easily, it's easy to take things apart when they realise it's not going to work. Some of the stuff that mind-storms brings is not only the ability to animate it, but also the ability to take measurements on it, so you can measure your loads, measure your temperature, you can measure your heart rate, or whatever else it is that you're trying to do so that they can actually do the science research."
"Can a classroom build a whole Lego-town that's completely off the grid? So they have to understand something about wind turbines and the science behind them, how many blades, what blade-angles, they can run a bunch of tests. They have to understand about solar cells and how solar collectors and how to optimise the amount of sunlight coming in to your collector. And they have to understand something about LED lights versus incandescent lights, and energy usage, and they get excited about it because they want to build this town. So by pulling all these different things together, the whole class as one unit builds this complete town, and different kids become experts in different areas, and end up teaching each other in the material."
- I suppose that you could build the town without Lego (and I suppose that unless you are ridiculously rich you would have to) but it would be good to put this together as an extended project – i.e. calculating the different loads, knowing the exact dimensions and weights of the bricks so you could design the buildings and predict what materials you would need to make them. Lego or similar would be useful for that. There are so many areas involved in this – not just the maths/engineering of designing, but the art of designing the architecture, you could cost each item so they have to plan in advance what they will build (but this might stifle creativity??). Could do a unit on cities including the history, each student design a building and produce a report on what it’s for, why they have designed it how they have, how they are going to power it etc. then build it. So much fun.
Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html
Two main points:
1. “patient problem solving” is what is required. When creating word maths problems, don’t give the students a diagram and exactly the information (eg dimensions) required. Better to give them a physical picture or video of the subject (water tank, swimming pool, stairs, measuring jug etc filling up with water) and get them talking about how long it will take to fill up. Then get them to figure out what information they require. students can guess in advance – they have buy in.
2. with modern technology it is so easy to create these resources and to post them on the web.
W. James Popham, Transformative Assessment ASCD 2008 Alexandria VA USA.
Read Friday 4th June 2010
Defines formative assessment as:
Formative assessment is a planned process in which assessment-elicited evidence of students’ status is used by teachers to adjust their ongoing instructional procedures or by students to adjust their current learning tactics. (p6)
No such thing as “a formative test” – tests can be used as part of the formative process, but will only be part of the process. 7
assessment doesn’t have to be tests.7
not a matter of looking at test results and doing something different next time – modification needs to be now, on the spot, for these students.
formative ≠ periodic assessment
READ: Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998a). Assessment and Classroom Learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 5(1), 7-73. – the meta-analysis which originally supported and popularized formative assessment.
o Formative assessment raises achievement of all students but particularly low-achieving students. Reduces achievement gap. 19
o No negative effects found from formative assessment
Learning Progressions: / aka task analysis / aka progress map 25
A Learning Progression is a sequenced set of subskills and bodies of enabling knowledge that, it is believed, students must master en route to mastering a target curricular aim – typically a skill, rather than a body of knowledge. Eg the ability to write a persuasive essay or the ability to display a complex set of data in tables, figures, or graphs; or the ability to find a solution to a real world problem in maths involving the use of two or more operations.
A body of enabling knowledge is a set of facts or info a student must memorise or understand
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