This Blog tries to capture my thinking as several colleagues and I connect, collaborate, and create learning experiences to build our understanding of instructional design and applications.
During the school year, I introduced students to the abbreviation cpa, short for the term Continuous Partial Attention coined by Linda Stone. To be expected, all my students could relate to this cultural phenomenon and were quick to point out that it's not only their age demographic that falls prey to cpa. We read several articles as class assignments in preparation for our own Google Survey and argument essay. Our question was based on the Renny Gleeson TED presentation on the Culture of Availability: Can technology make us more human(e)?
Today, Dr. Kristen Purcell will be speaking at the Young Adult Library Services AssociationALA pre-conference in Washington, DC, as part of a panel entitled "Promoting Teen Reading with Web 2.0 Tools." You can follow the preconference at http://sites.google.com/site/yalsareading/home or on Twitter with the hashtag #yalsareading.
Kristen Purcell's work is part of the Pew Internet & American Life Project
Check out this SlideShare presentation. I was most surprised by the statistics on texting.
Last week, when Dr. Ackerman brought out the Black Box and asked us to connect to a learning theory, besides the Skinner connection, I thought of the Dylan Wiliam and Paul Black article Inside the Black Box.
The two use the black box as a metaphor for our classrooms and argue that what we teachers do to manage all the situations that occur in a class period to "help students learn immediately and in the future" is really what matters first. The standards and achievement scores and all the rest of the goals in our race to the top come after we start paying attention to "the processes of teaching and learning" in those black boxes.
Several years ago, I had the chance, along with some of our other teachers, to attend a week-long work session with Dr. Wiliam. We worked to learn just how difficult it is to come up with effective assessments that truly teach us what students know and where they are in the learning continuum. That's been part of the professional development I've been privileged to have.
Seth Godin says the future of education in in small, self-motivated, guided learning communities who examine really important and authentic (read "real-world") problems. These won't necessarily be housed in buildings. He maintains that teachers have to be good at their art. And the education will be free. He takes shots at the old style school because the model was for an industrialized society/community. From his point of view, we all now live in a different society / economy and schools need to be in the business of creating folks who can use their own artistic selves to creatively solve problems in ways others have not. The old schools and their teachers taught "compliance rather than initiative." It's easier to do that
"Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat. Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It's difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it's a huge pain in the neck to do reliably.
Schools like teaching compliance. They're pretty good at it."
On his blog, Godin says "companies don't want compliance anymore."
In another post, Godin offers a starter list of the purpose(s) of school and hopes this list will at least get a discussion started so we can define what we want school to do.
"The purpose of school is to:
Become an informed citizen
Be able to read for pleasure
Be trained in the rudimentary skills necessary for employment
Do well on standardized tests
Homogenize society, at least a bit
Pasteurize out the dangerous ideas
Give kids something to do while parents work
Teach future citizens how to conform
Teach future consumers how to desire
Build a social fabric
Create leaders who help us compete on a world stage
Generate future scientists who will advance medicine and technology
Learn for the sake of learning
Help people become interesting and productive
Defang the proletariat
Establish a floor below which a typical person is unlikely to fall
Find and celebrate prodigies, geniuses and the gifted
Make sure kids learn to exercise, eat right and avoid common health problems
Teach future citizens to obey authority
Teach future employees to do the same
Increase appreciation for art and culture
Teach creativity and problem solving
Minimize public spelling mistakes
Increase emotional intelligence
Decrease crime by teaching civics and ethics
Increase understanding of a life well lived
Make sure the sports teams have enough players "
Godin's questions about the future change in education aren't limited to K-12 schools. For colleges he wonders whether they'll be available or scare, expensive or free, about a prestigious name or the learning. He warns, "If you think the fallout in the newspaper business was dramatic, wait until you see what happens to education." If he were a betting man, he says," the abundant learning combination is the one that's going to change the world."
School is a complete failure. " Teachers are the key to the whole deal. We need teachers to care so much that they can't stop pushing until they create change in the students who really need (and deserve) it." The Linchpin link will take you to a You Tube video "Seth Godin on Education."
I agree that there are some communities where the school has failed miserably, despite pockets of brilliance in some classes. For these communities, failure of leadership is just one of the obstacles to learning. And Godin's right, more money will not improve the conditions in those schools. In some communities too many people have abdicated their responsibility to teach, starting with parents, a child's first and primary teacher.
I particularly appreciated one commentator's remark that there really isn't much new in Godin's agenda. That pushing the humanities and critical thinking projects and teaching leadership to everyone has been around for a decade or more and it still hasn't changed things.
From my humble perspective, I believe that not everyone does live in an information-only society. There aren't just people with a passion to be artists. Some want to live as the artisan (the plumber, the electrician, the carpenter/cabinet maker) -- not everyone has the ability, even if it's not politically correct to tell them, to be Picasso, to be Sir Isaac Newton, to be Colin Powell. For my part, I'm glad we have good mechanics.
Recently, I read a letter from the parent of one of our school's graduates. The young man had been studying auto mechanics. He became interested in engineering when one of our teachers got him involved in a bridge building competition. The parent wrote in to say that the aspiring auto mechanic now has a master's degree in Civil/Mechanical Engineering and his design was chosen for a bridge in Pedricktown, New Jersey.
Godin doesn't seem to see or believe that there are many routes right through the middle of our public school system to become a wonderful leader, an ingenious problem solver, or an inspiring artist. I believe our schools K to 16 have been a great experiment in attempting to teach everyone. Few school systems around the world even attempt that.
Like Godin, I believe that teachers are the key and that teachers need to get better at their art every day, every year. I believe the work of researchers like Robert Marzano Classroom Instruction That Works or Doug Lemov Teach Like a Champion will help codify the techniques and show teachers what works, not just tell them.
I believe schools are changing and that technology will help propel this change. I also know that change is a slow process because people's values change slowly. And learning, even teacher's learning, occurs slowly over time with lots of practice and patience. There is no silver bullet.
I also read an interview with Seth Godin by Barbara Bray about education and change as well as his latest book. When asked about job training in the future, Godin offered "I think there are some things that the jobs of future have in common, and I hope that we can start measuring this and focusing on this and stop obsessing about the length of the hypotenuse.
1. Solve interesting problems.
2. Be self reliant.
3. Find the information you need from the Net and other places.
4. Connect.
5. Lead.
6. Invent.
7. Fail.
8. Learn from #7 and repeat."
Barbara Bray, an Educational Consultant, President/Owner of My eCoach, writes a regular column on professional development for OnCUE and is active on social media sharing her views about the future of education.
When I went to the Classroom 2.0 archive for Elluminate discussions and listened to that webinar, Godin's remarks included ideas related to balancing the practical realities of making a living and going out there to create the kind of change he envisions:
Downsize
Cut your costs
Go out on a limb
Get in trouble
Mavericks are rarely punished or expelled
If you’re good at your art and they expel you, you will go somewhere else and make a difference
And for parents interested in effecting change
Start a Mother-Son or a Father-Daughter Book Club
Read something challenging
Something that will start a conversation like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”
Once a week get together and create the right kind of conversation
Steve Hargadon, who created Classroom 2.0, also has a print interview with Seth Godin at that website.
Linchpin may just be another on this summer's growing reading list.
I've begun working on my Insight Summary. This will take some time because I'm reading interviews, and blogs. I'm listening to an Elluminate discussion which occurred this morning at Classroom 2.0 and viewing a video all centering on Seth Godin's perception of how education is changing -- both public secondary education and higher education. I'll be updating soon.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Saturday's NJEA / Stockton Technology Conference began in Alton Auditorium after coffee with Darryl Ensminger, Dr. Jung Lee, and the CCTS contingent: Dennis, Judi, Frank, and Mike Ritzius.
Mike was a Google presenter in the break-out sessions, which began right after keynote speaker Patrick Higgins explained how technology isn't an add-on in our daily lives, it just is. Classroom practice using technology is no longer on the horizon; it's here. And it's liberating. "Let's stop talking about technology integration; let's talk about learning!"
As an aside, Patrick's blog Chalkdust 101 had a fascinating post about Professional Development that comes to the learner. Two technology specialists "offer sessions live online using Skype and a screen-sharing program called Yugma (both free) to teach you about various social software applications and the possibilities for their use in the classroom." I'm wondering how that same kind of collaboration and learning might work if the topics were more about instructional design, pre-assessing, chunking the learning, assessing, pacing, and face-to-face class management. Hmmm? Could that be a capstone project?
Judi and I headed over to an Introduction to Thinkfinity. I'm glad we picked that one. I walked away with three resources I'm using this week with my Honors Freshmen. Thinkfinity is a website that offers thousands of K-12 lesson plans, inter-actives, and more. There are strategies for integrating Web-based resources into classroom learning, links to discipline-specific Websites that focus on science, humanities, history, math language arts, financial literacy and more.
Theresa Gibbon was our presenter and she was great! She welcomed us to the Thinkfinity Community which is another online collaboration group. Thinkfinity's community hosts are also available online for questions.
My freshmen honors are still working on their persuasive essays on the question "Does technology make us more human(e)?" This week they're building a survey in Google Docs to find out what their classmates, teachers, and administrators think. I'm also teaching them about surveys, random sampling, and so on. We'll watch a video on multitasking from MIT that I discovered on Thinkfinity. We may even take a peek at Digital Nation a little later.
Saturday, May 1, 2010 was a full but satisfying day, with the last session ending about 4 pm and lots to think about on the way home.
We had a good group meeting this afternoon to sketch out our History of Educational Media. I hoped everyone left with that "Cumbaya - Good vibes" feeling.
I'm really giving some thought to Gagne's Nine Steps of Instruction and its application in our group's project as well as in my own classroom instruction. Not that many years back, I had the opportunity to attend Pat Wolfe's week-long "Brain Matters" Conference in Napa, California. Pat is an extraordinarily gifted presenter who deftly weaves her stories into the educational implications of the most recent brain research. Before the conference, we were required to read her book of the same name and three others besides.
The quote at Pat's Website illustrates why her passion is to teach us about why the brain matters. "Education is discovering the brain and that's about the best news there could be... Anyone who does not have a thorough, holistic grasp of the brain's architecture, purposes, and main ways of operating is as far behind the times as an automobile designer without a full understanding of engines." Leslie Hart, "Human Brain, Human Learning"
The little bit I've read of Robert Gagne connects in many ways to those readings. At least I recall some of what Pat taught us. Gagne uses the phrase "stimuli activates receptors" and I think of Pat's explanation of how neural transmitters [chemicals] move toward neural receptors traveling from axon to dendrites to axon and across the gaps between in an electrochemical cascade. And all that's just to get their attention.
I wonder in the culture of distraction, impatience, and over-stimulation, in which we all live, whether it's more difficult now to get the learner's attention than in the past.
My Honors English Freshmen are examining Renny Gleeson's TED Talk, where he asks us all to create technology that makes us more human(e). The students have read about Linda Stone's concept of "CPA" -- constant partial attention and its effects. But they've also read articles calling for the use of cellphone technology in the classrooms. They're going to generate information by surveying their classmates and teachers on their usage and attitudes before they compose their papers. This should be interesting. I see among some of them a compulsion to be available all day and night to all the people in their address book. But they have lots of ideas about how they could put their phones to work in class. Don't you just love em?
Last night the cohort met in F-111 at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey to "Take a Closer Look" at what the end might be. The showcase of final projects included impressive presentations by Mary Irwin - "CSI Boot Camp," Jennifer Babcock's "Integrating Technology with Administrative Tasks," Catherine Moore's "Professional Development for 21st Century Technology Skills,"Eileen Anaya's "Vocabulary Development Using Interactive Web-Based Tools," and Peter Dolcy's "Videogames as Motivational Tools in the General Classroom."
We were warmly welcomed with catered wraps, sandwiches, and finger foods and a rich redskin potato salad. We applauded all the presenters for their hard work made to look easy and cheered for the Capstone Advisor, Amy Ackerman when the achievement of her tenure was announced.
On the ride home we talked about the projects we had seen, our own prospective projects, and the group work we're involved in now.
I'm making my way slowly and appreciate when people point me in the right direction. So I'm taking a close look at "The Nine" by Robert Gagne. What a privilege we enjoy as students of Gagne's protege.So I discover according to eLearning Guru that "Robert Gagne is considered to be the foremost researcher and contributor to the systematic approach to instructional design and training. Gagne and his followers are known as behaviorists and their focus is on the outcomes - or behaviors -that result from training."The Conditions of Learning first published in 1965 identified the mental conditions for learning. Gagne created a nine step process that addresses the conditions of learning. The steps are called the Nine Events of Instruction: from "Gain Attention" to "Enhance retention and transfer to job"
I'm still reading but now it's 9 and I've got to wind this post up!
