I am a high school technology teacher in Ponoka, Alberta just hoping to make a difference. One day I will rule the world with all kinds of cool edutech stuff...But if that takes too long, I'll at least rule my own imagination.
As my eighth course draws to a close, I look back on all that I have learned. I have always had a strong grasp of technology and have no end of ideas for implementing its use in the k-12 classroom. However, where I excel in marrying technology with imagination, I lacked in relative planning. Instituting the GAME plan into my lesson design (as noted in previous blog posts), has resulted in an aspect of professional growth I had not anticipated. This, along with discovering the NETS-T and NETS-S, were among the greatest aspects of my recent professional growth.
I used the GAME plan to design and deliver a lesson recently to a group of digital photography students. Photography is a content area that is particularly challenging to me, as I have no prior knowledge. However, my students and I encountered few complications because the unit was so well planned regarding setting Goals, taking Action to meet those goals, Monitoring progress and Evaluating whether we achieved what we set out to achieve. This is certainly a design plan that I will incorporate in all future lessons.
Working through my own GAME plan, I have connected with other technology teachers in my province and I have already begun collaborating on projects that will stimulate and engage both students and teachers alike. Along this line, I plan to incorporate problem based learning into my planning as soon as school starts. My newfound colleagues and I have engaged in discussions about exciting new projects. Some of these include digital storytelling for students throughout the province to share country versus city lifestyles, team tutorials, and blogging. Instituting GAME planning into my lessons includes incorporating NETS Standards as well. Knowledge of these standards is not common in Alberta districts and I look forward to incorporating them into my practice. Although we have strict technology standards, the NETS standards are far less ambiguous, making them more relevant to what is actually happening in classrooms.
It has been nine years since I last taught in the public system. Prior to embarking on my Walden MSED degree, the idea of returning to the profession left me somewhat filled with anxiety. Today I still feel butterflies, but now they are from excited anticipation, rather than anxiety. The technology tools, insight to collaboration, and GAME plan lesson designing that I have learned are precisely the tools I need to be successful as I re-enter the profession of teaching.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about my current professional development plans. I began working towards improving my teaching practice by working on two “International Society for Technology in Education” standards:
1.“Develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital-age communication and collaboration tools…” (ISTE, 2008 4d), and
2.“Participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning…” (ISTE, 2008 5(a)).
My last post offered an update of my progress, and now I am sharing this continuation. Just to refresh your memory, my plans to engage in learning communities entail beginning with establishing relationships with other Alberta technology teachers. With that in mind, I have been diligently building a database of all the schools in Alberta. I am finding all the information I require to do this and thought I would share some of what I have discovered:
Alberta School Type
# of Schools*
Charter **
3
First Nations
36
Francophone
18***
Private
109
Public
475
Separate
93
* I have only collected data on senior high schools because there are 2,347 schools throughout Alberta. Collecting contact information for all of these schools would be far too time-consuming. I am teaching senior high school students, so I will begin with fellow senior high teachers.
**I did not even realize Alberta had any, so this came as a surprise to me
*** This is far more than I expected to see
Now that I have a database containing school names and relevant contact information, I need to wait until the fall before I can communicate with each school’s technology specialist. This is not as much of a set back as I initially considered. This gives me the requisite time to plan what I wish to discuss with my colleagues at the above noted schools.
Planning my discussion with colleagues is a newly arisen concern with this project. I have focused on gathering the contact information so I can start contacting my fellow technology teachers, but what exactly do I want to discuss with them? I want to ensure I am succinct, articulate and convey my plans in a way that shows my colleagues I want to create a community that will benefit all of us. For example, I must be sure to incorporate discussions regarding aligning assessments with curriculum outcomes (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009); are they incorporating technology into their assessments? If so, how are they doing this?
Throughout my career as a consultant, I have organized large numbers of individuals to see a common goal come to fruition. This project, however, is of a scale far greater than any in which I have been involved. I see what a huge undertaking this is and have come to the realization that I cannot accomplish building this community within my first year back in the profession. I want to ensure this Alberta technology teachers’ community produced meaningful discussions, and simply knowing who one another is will not translate into meaningful discussions.
With this in mind, I have modified my plan as follows. I will establish relationships with other senior high school technology teachers in my district. This will be a relatively small community as there are only five of us. There may be a strong technology community in my district already, but because I was hired only a few weeks ago, I am not yet aware of existing professional learning communities. I eagerly look forward to discovering the collaborative opportunities that await.
Although I have modified my plan to be far more local than I initially intended, I have not abandoned my vision of establishing a province-wide community of technology teachers. Such an organization may, indeed, already exist. I hope this is the case, but I have not yet discovered such a group. Joining an existing group would be far easier than initiating one. However, I would be delighted to be a part of a movement that could help all Alberta teachers integrate technology into their classrooms.
“Great teachers are born, not made” is a common phrase in education. Some adamantly believe this to be true. I used to be one of those people. I stress the past tense because I have been on a journey of enlightenment for the past fourteen months and am beginning to learn to transform myself into a great teacher. Just like a professional football player must practice techniques, rehearse different plays and always think ahead, so too must a great teacher. In my last post, I described my GAME plan (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009) for beginning my transformation. My first goal is to participate in technological communities, extend my growth as an educator, and to develop meaningful, culturally responsive, engaging uses for technology for all students (Wahl, L., & Duffield, J., 2005). Read on as I continue my journey and strive to bring my plans to fruition.
Putting my plan into action requires a certain set of resources. Primarily I have made a commitment to create a database of contacts with a vested interest in educational technology in Alberta. These contacts include members of my existing business associates, school division colleagues, and others I have yet to meet. It is my hope to create a community of technology-minded professionals to improve technology and its use in Alberta schools.
I have begun implementation of my plan by initiating communications with an executive technology team member (Dr. Phil McRae) of my province’s teaching association, and compiling a list of school technology personnel throughout the province. The latter will prove to be more fruitful in the fall as teachers are not accessible to the time of year. By associating with said technology-minded personnel and organizations throughout the province, I will be closer to achieving my goals. Increasing my exposure to a broader range of thinkers and develop purposeful relationships with other technology-minded educators.
At this stage of my plans, I am in somewhat of a holding pattern because many of the individuals I hope to establish relationships with are away for the summer break. However, Twitter has provided an informal avenue for discussion with some of these people. In fact, I expect to establish a rapport with colleagues I might not otherwise be aware of had I not invested my time in Twitter in this manner. Therefore, although school breaks impede my plans to some small degree, current technologies open other doors.
Self-directed learning is the way I have acquired all of my technology skills to date. This strategy has always served me well, and will again as I explore different ways to fulfil my goal. Monitoring my own progress, on the other hand, may be somewhat difficult. I plan to keep a close eye on the database of contacts I am building. However, it will not be until I have begun interacting with new found colleagues that I will know if I am collaborating with the right people. This is where I fear I may lose sight of my goal. I want to be involved with creating change in educational technology and this means I need to be involved with people who are interested in the same goal.
My desire to grow as a professional is not unique. It is this desire for evolution in teachers that proves to me great teachers are, indeed made.Some people are born with an aptitude for teaching, but if they do not continue to plan for growth in their practice, they are not great teachers. I have begun to put my plan into action and look forward to the education I will receive along the way. I invite you to participate in my journey and share your stories of professional growth as well.
---------------------------------------------
References:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Wahl, L., & Duffield, J. (2005). Using flexible technology to meet the needs of diverse learners: What teachers can do. Retrieved July 12, 2011 from http://www.wested.org/online_pubs/kn-05-01.pdf
Few would disagree that integrating technology in the classroom is not an important aspect of education today. There are organizations specifically devoted to ensuring this integration occurs and provide guidelines detailing how to integrate technology effectively. One such organization is the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Although this organization is self-described as international, its existence is not common knowledge in Alberta, Canada. Nor are the organization’s NETS (National Educational Technology Standards) common within the Alberta educational system. This is an unfortunate truth as the NETS are viable goals all teachers should strive to incorporate in their classroom. This paper discusses some of those outcomes and a personal plan to for professional growth in two NETS outcomes.
As mentioned above, Alberta teachers are not generally aware of the ISTE or its NETS outcomes, but it is not because we do not care about delivering a quality, technology-driven education. The issue reaches much deeper than that. Canada does not have a federal department of education. Each of our thirteen jurisdictions (ten provinces and three territories) has their own ministries of education. In some cases, vast differences exist in curriculum and assessments across the country, so there is no such thing as national education in Canada. Although there may be some provinces buying into the ISTE in Canada, Alberta Education is not. Alberta teachers truly do strive to incorporate technology in the classroom and I thought it might be likely that Alberta Education would perhaps at least mention this organization on its Web site.
After perusing their Web site at length, I found no mention of the ISTE at all. Granted, participation in ISTE seems to be strictly voluntary so this was not entirely surprising. We have a plethora of student standards, but I have never found standards to which teachers would be held accountable. Upon further investigation, I found what seems to be Alberta Education’s attempt at creating teacher standards. I felt compelled to share a small piece of this document with you, as it is testament to the pace of educational change. The “Teaching Quality Standard Applicable to the Provision of Basic Education in Alberta” document was last updated May 14, 1997 and one clause in particular states “…teachers apply a variety of technologies to meet students’ learning needs. Teachers use teaching/learning resources such as the chalkboard, texts, computers and other auditory, print and visual media, and maintain an awareness of emerging technological resources “(Alberta Education, 1997). You can see more of Alberta Education’s document here.
How do you plug it in?
Photo Credit: Deanna Deveau, 2011
The fact that most of today’s students have never seen a chalkboard in their classrooms indicates Alberta Education needs to consider an update to their teaching standards. These standards to appear to fall short in comparison to, for example, the International Society for Technology in Education. The ISTE NETS for teachers include standards and performance indicators including
“Model Digital-Age Work and Learning:
Demonstrate fluency in technology systems…transfer current knowledge to new technologies and situations model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments”
Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity
Provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching…” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).
There is no ambiguity in the ISTE standards as I found to be the case in the Alberta Education document I noted earlier. The clarity of the NETS makes it easy to identify areas (or standards) in which I am skilled and those which require more focus in my practice. In fact, the ones listed above happen to be areas in which I feel quite confident. I have a strong technology background and envisioning how to use various applications seems to come easy for me. That is not to say I do not have work to do in this area, but I am confident I meet these standards.
On the other hand, one of the standards in which I plan to foster growth requires that I “…develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital-age communication and collaboration tools…” (ISTE, 2008 4d). Although I am a confident teacher and self-proclaimed expert computer user, I recognize that I need to concentrate my professional development in the area of collaborating with others outside of my immediate circle of colleagues. Living in rural, central Alberta dramatically limits the degree of cultural diversity that I am exposed to geographically. I am not opposed to engaging in collaborative work, it is just not something that has been in my first line-up of professional tools. Clearly, this is counter intuitive to growing as a professional because collaborating with colleagues and peers ultimately serves to support my efforts. This is especially true when taking risks and trying different methods (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009).
Another standard I want to address in my continued professional growth is to “…participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning…” (ISTE, 2008 5(a)). This standard is closely aligned with the one noted above, as they both require that I initiate communications and develop relationships with others outside of my school and district.
Identifying areas in need of improvement is one thing, but setting out to improve one’s practice is quite another. This change requires planning. Setting goals, determining a course of action, monitoring the process and evaluating the success of the endeavour is all part of Cennamo, Ross and Ertmer’s GAME Plan (2009). My GAME plan follows.
Goals:Locate and join an Alberta based association whose mandate is to advance technology in Alberta education. It is important to join an Alberta association as their mandates and work most closely reflects Alberta Education’s student objectives. Joining is not enough, however. I will need to become active in these organizations to ensure I grow as a professional and implement my growth in my practice. Throughout this process, I will build a network of educators and other professionals with a common interest in promoting technological growth in education.
Action: Initially I will build contact list of Alberta schools’ technology leaders, search the Internet, and capitalize on existing Twitter presence to locate educational technology associations in Alberta. The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) may also have leads in this regard so it makes sense to contact them as well. Once I have established a presence, I will become an active participant, and contribute to pools of knowledge and discussions.
Monitoring: Initially, maintaining a database of contacts will be a clear indicator as to whether I am establishing a network of like-minded professionals. Meaningful reflection on the quality of these contacts and participation in associations is necessary to ensure I am using my time wisely and expanding my own knowledge and participation I collaborative projects. If I am not implementing what I learn from these partnerships, or if I am not meeting my initial goals, it may be time to either cycle back to the action stage of my plan, or to set new goals.
Evaluating: Have I learned what I set out to learn? Have I met my goals? This is very similar to the monitoring phase of my GAME plan in that I may end up returning to my action phase to pick up where I may have strayed, or to establish new goals.
I have always considered education to be a slow moving machine. It takes ministerial changes for policies to be rewritten, new administrators to change school mandates and so on. All of these changes take time…a lot of time. But, having said this, I must add that education is also a profession of renewal and change and newness. Every group of students brings opportunity for new learning experiences for both students and teachers. Incorporating technology into those experiences increases opportunities for newness and different learning experiences exponentially. Alberta teachers are striving to incorporate technology into their classrooms, but they have relatively little guidance in this regard. Accessing a document such as the ISTE’s NETS for teachers will empower Alberta teachers to achieve all their technology goals.
Over the last several weeks I have been doing a lot of reading about educational theory. If you have been following my blog, you’ll note that I have discussed the benefits of behaviourist, constructionist and social learning theories. Before I embarked on rediscovering what theorists like Skinner, Bruner and Piaget had to say, I considered my own personal educational theory to be somewhat eclectic: I took a pinch of behaviourism and a pinch of constructionism and so on. This is my Pinch Theory!
Weeks later, and with even more research under my belt, I still maintain this is a good way to practice the art of teaching. However I have also gained a better vision of how to ensure the majority of instruction takes a student-centred approach. So much of what we do can slip into a teacher-centred approach when we’re tired or feeling the pressure of the curriculum.
I think teachers need to engage in regular conversations with their peers about instructional and learning theories and to not lose sight of research. Sure we have all read about these theories when we earned our B.Ed. degrees, but how many of us (be honest here) actually consider the impact of these theories on our practice? When we teach in a bubble, we do not teach well. Our lessons should be based on research as much as they are based on curriculum.
The one constant that remains in my perspective on teaching, is the integration of technology into students’ education. Regardless of students’ ages, there is always room for technology. Of course this is a requirement of Alberta Education, but it is also something that is personally important. I’m a nerd at heart and wish very much to provide my students with some of the same technical skills that I have enjoyed. I know so many young adults (30ish is young to me!) who do not know how to use a computer, never mind know how to use one to create valuable products.
It is almost criminal to think we are sending students into their post-school world with little to no effective technology skills. Sure kids know how to use a lot of pieces of technology, but are they given the opportunity to apply those tools in productive, meaningful settings in school? How can we expect them to compete globally if they have not been given the tools to succeed in their new world?
If you read my blog bio, you would have read that I am not currently teaching in a k-12 classroom. When next I do, the first place I’ll make changes is within my own practice. Here are two of the things I would love the opportunity to change in a class of my own:
1.Change the focus of technology from teacher-centred to student-centred focus.
How many of you have Smartboards (for example) in your classroom? I had one the last time I taught. How many of you use your Smartboard primarily as an instructional tool? I admit I did. I tried to give students a chance to use the Smartboard every day, but honestly, it seemed like more work than I had time for.
But why do we limit ourselves and our students this way? I think a Smartboard (for example) is a great way to share information with students (Orey considers this an instructional approach), but they can be so much more. The next time I have an opportunity to use a Smartboard, I really want to be the one in the class who uses it the least. I think students should have the greatest opportunity to use all technological tools to create their own learning. Dr. Michael Orey considers this a learner’s approach to using technology, but really shouldn’t that just be common sense? How else will our students graduate with meaningful, productive, useful tech skills? I’m not just talking about Smartboards here either. I’m talking about any form of web-application or software they might use.
There are literally hundreds of possibilities when it comes to software and web-based applicationsPersonally, I think Smartboards are the least effective ways to allocate tech dollars. If a school wants to invest in an interactive white board, I think something like Promethean’s Multi-Input Interactive Whiteboard makes more sense. Check out the demo below or click this link to the YouTube Video.
If a school is going to invest in an interactive whiteboard, I think it’s just good budgeting and responsible support for students to purchase something that allows for some sort of physical, collaborative effort. This takes the use of the interactive whiteboard one step closer to being a student-centred tool because it simultaneously accepts multi-user input. It’s very cool.
2.Another change I would invoke in my teaching practice is to advocate for the free and varied use of technology in the classroom. In my previous blog post, “Technology Rich Collaborative Classrooms: Big Bad Wolf or Harbinger of Opportunity?”, I spoke about the misconceived evils of allowing students access to technology. Too many administrators are still reluctant to open the firewalls to allow the use of many web 2.0 tools. I realize quality control measures must be in place to maintain the integrity of a network. But really, do network integrity and FREE web 2.0 tools for creativity HAVE to be mutually exclusive?
I have been doing a lot of surfing (aka avoiding client work and practicing procrastination in its purest form) and found a number of incredibly cool web 2.0 tools. I thought I’d share them with you here.
Web Site Builders:
Something I have always wanted to do is have my students create a web site to organize materials they have created for a project. A web site allows students to incorporate video, audio, hyperlinks and documents all in one aesthetically pleasing and fun place. It’s like one-stop shopping for their peers to view what they have created. Not only will this help students gain a better understanding of the connections among the varied pieces of their projects, but it creates an unending venue for students to create and share their creations. Once they begin their web sites, they can continue to build and change them as long as they are students and beyond.
Webs.com This is a free, easy to use web site building tool, but there are ads. As long as you choose the option to create a site for educational purposes, you can rest easy knowing your students will not be exposed to suggestive advertisements. Although I design web sites, I like to use this one for student content because I don’t have to spend time designing pages.
Kafafa.com This is another web site building tool without ads. Keep in mind this site includes life updates as you edit. This means if you start building and have to come back to it later, your unfinished web site will be live.
Creativity:
Kids need multiple avenues to express their creativity. I recently listened attended an event where Sir Ken Robinson was the keynote speaker. I had the pleasure of meeting him and chatting with him afterwards at the Central Alberta Teachers’ Convention in Red Deer, AB on February 10th. “Creativity should be a fundamental of education, not a supplement” he said to me.
How true! Education is forever cutting the arts programs, but those programs do not have to be the only media for creativity! When students are provided an opportunity to employ their natural sense of creativity in any subject area, they flourish and expand their own horizons. This supports and enhances their learning because they use their new-found knowledge through their creative process.
MyOats Remember Hasbro’s Spirograph? Well MyOats is nothing like that!
Actually, kind of is because it mirrors your input in multiple locations around a central focal point. It is super cool and would fit in really well with symmetry and mathematics. It’s a super cool tool to create some really beautiful designs too!
Aviary This is a browser-based graphics editor. It doesn’t allow you to save the image to your hard drive, but it will allow you to publish it or save it online so you can continue working on it later.
These are only a few of the tools that I have come across lately. There are countless more and I look forward to seeing any that others have found.
It has only been relatively recently that I have returned to the field of education. For the past seven or so years I have worked as a business consultant providing writing services to organizations throughout Alberta, Canada. This work has really opened my eyes to the skills students need to be taught in school.
Do you remember being in about grade 6 or 7? Do you remember sitting in your desk, in your row with your eyes on your teacher at the front of the room? Do you remember painstakingly writing down notes from the board until your fingers ached? I do. It wasn’t unusual to spend an entire day, or entire week working on assignments and sitting in desks - class after class. After graduation some went on to college or university while others entered the workforce right away like I did. Many from this generation are likely still working in their chosen fields.
But times have changed, haven’t they? The jobs teachers prepare students for today do not yet even exist! Who knows what sorts of careers will be available to our students in a few years from now? Anyone currently in grade one, for example, won’t be entering the work force full time before 2022! When you consider the leaps technology has made in the last decade, just imagine what will happen in the next.
So what are we doing to prepare these kids? What is going on in schools to ensure students have the requisite skills for a world that is yet to be? Let me step back to my time as a consultant for a moment. I’ve been in innumerable different organizations, and there has always been a common thread; every project I’ve been involved in has required team work. Business owners require teams of employees to accomplish various tasks to make their businesses run smoothly and effectively. It’s not surprising that some teams work better than others.
It’s usually pretty obvious which employees must have been home with the flu when THEIR grade school teachers used cooperative learning!
So let’s take a look at Collaborative (Cooperative) Learning for a moment. According to McRel (2007), Cooperative Learning should entail
·Groups of only a few individuals of varying abilities
·Used regularly, but not exclusively
How many of you work at jobs that require you to frequently work as a part of a team? Generally every team member brings certain strengths to a project too – not everyone has precisely the same skill set, right? So if we know kids today ultimately have to work in this sort of a setting, it makes sense they learn how to do it in school.
Cooperative learning in schools is really about social learning. Given that we are social creatures, we can make a pretty good case for teaching students to work and to learn in a cooperative learning setting. Lev Vygotsky talked about learning in a social capacity by drawing on the strengths of a more knowledgeable other to allow a student to move from a state of “What I know” through to (and beyond) “That which I don’t yet understand” (Orey, 2010). When we teach students to learn through social settings such as group work, and to learn from their peers, we are really giving them a leg up on life after graduation. When students understand they can learn from members of their team as well as their leaders (teachers, or employers), they will have skills they need to succeed in the workforce.
But wait – remember we talked about a workforce that doesn’t yet exist? Is cooperative learning the be-all-end-all solution to preparing kids for future careers?
Not by a long shot!
Any project I’ve ever been involved in used every imaginable bit of technology necessary to get the job done. Outside of learning to use production tools (i.e.: MS Office Suite, etc.), there are a host of web-based applications that will prepare our students for working in tomorrow’s world. Here are some of the web-based tools I’ve actually used for work and some ideas for using them in the classroom:
These are only a few web-based tools that can be useful in the workplace. And these are also the most likely applications to be banned in schools. Students are not allowed access for fear of what doors these tools may open. These tools, and others like them, connect individuals both globally and locally. They allow us to learn from colleagues/peers we work next to or collaborate with over vast distances.
So if collaborating and working as a team is a part of the “real world”, and if using web-based applications have a viable place in the workforce, to what degree are students being given access to the very tools they need to prepare for their working lives? Are we really preparing these kids for success? Rather than deny them access for fear of evil, why not teach students how to use these tools productively and how to handle the bad stuff they will (and likely already have) encounter? After all, these kids are going to need these skills, and a whole lot more, for the next 70+ years, aren’t they?
Alas, I am but one and not everyone would agree with me on this one. If school personnel did agree with me, students would have virtually free access to any tool that exists. They are already using these applications in their free time anyway, so why not harness these skills and teach them to use the tools productively?
My guess is that this isn’t happening because of fear. A fear of the unknown. A fear of losing control. A fear of the big Bad Wolf of technology.
Take, for example,DavidSobel, Director of Teacher Certification Programs at AntiochNew EnglandGraduateSchool in New Hampshire. I recently read his article "Take Back the Afternoon: Preserving the Landscape of Childhood in Spite of Computers" (2004) where he suggests manufacturers of technology are doing a great disservice to society by targeting marketing efforts on children as young as four or five. Mr. Sobel would have us believe that these same manufacturers should be ashamed for trying to secure young children as technological consumers for the next 60 years (Sobel, 2004).
...Wait a minute…
They WILL be technological consumers for AT LEAST the next 60 years!
Here is that link to my Voicethread I was telling you about above.
Voicethread is a tool that allows users to create an interactive photo album. This is a great way for students to share work they have created, or to initiate discussions students can continue outside of class time.
This could be cool: I have an envelope full of 8x10 photos that I have used as story starters. Scanning them and uploading them to a voice thread and having students start conversations in Voicethread would help them to expand their own ideas for creative writing.
At the very least, it’s pretty cool way to share ideas and I hope you’ll check mine out:
If you’re not into that, you HAVE to watch this YouTube video. If you haven’t really bought into what I’ve shared with you yet, this video is SURE to convince.
“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality” WaltDisney
Walt sure knew what he was talking about, didn’t he? It doesn’t matter how great a thing is, if it isn’t important to people, the dream will never materialize. I think teaching is the same way. No matter how important a concept is to a teacher, if the kids don’t give a rip about it I guarantee there will be no magic.
This seems like pretty basic “Teaching 101”, but achieving this isn’t as easy as it sounds. Creating lessons that are indeed magical, is in itself a feat worthy of Disney-style fireworks. If we want our students to really be engaged in what they are learning, they need to be involved in the designing and creating process. Researchers, theorists and educational experts refer to this as “Constructionism”, but I’m going to call it MickeyMouse teaching because:
a)WaltDisney was one of the most creative minds of our time, and b)Mickey Mouse Teaching sounds way more fun than "Constructionism”
So let me tell share one example of what I think good quality Mickey Mouse teaching looks like. There are about a bazillion (my all-time favourite teacher questions this term) different ways to incorporate Mickey Mouse teaching into a classroom. This is just one way and I would love to hear about others, so please be sure to leave me a comment!
Generating and Testing Hypotheses:
In a nutshell, we’re talking about posing a question, postulating the answer, and investigating the actual outcome, right? So let’s bring in Mickey and see if we can’t generate some magic!
Nasa’s Design a Planet has to be one of the coolest, most magical interactive tools I have come across in the last year. This interactive web site allows the user to create a new planet based on what is already known about existing planets. The tool challenges users to create a planet that can sustain human life. By manipulating numerous variables, the user is guided through a process of creating this new world.
This interactive, animated tool requires users to consider the impact each variable has on the resulting planet. Will there be volcanoes? Tectonic plate movement? Water - what form? What will the planet's orbit and mass be? What kind of sun will the planet have? My first planet was not able to sustain life, and the tool explained why.
TELL me that isn’t cool!
This is such a great MickeyMouse (formerly known as Constructionist) way of teaching that gets kids to ask the right questions, take a stab at an answer, and then test their theories by looking at the results of their own creation. This fits in perfectly with these Alberta curricular objectives:
Grade 6 Science examines control of variables, and Topic C Sky Science focuses on planets, and Earth’s relationship with its surrounding celestial bodies.
This process of posing questions, predicting answers, and examining outcomes doesn’t have to be limited to scientific or mathematical settings. We can use this model for any inquiry based learning we want to present.
This same process works for any subject area for virtually any grade level. But remember, MickeyMouse-ifying your classroom is NOT going to be an overnight process. Creating effective and meaningful projects with your students takes a great deal of planning, a lot of sweat, and tons of organization – but it pays off a bazillionfold in the end (sorry Mr. Krull ;)!
There are scads and scads of fantastic project based learning web sites. Here are a few that might pique your interest!
http://pbl-online.org/ is a good resource for getting you started with project-based learning in your classroom.
If you need a few ideas to get your Mousey goodness flowing, check out some Project Based Learning examples from the US Department of Education at http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/SER/Technology/ch8.html
Some people have eye-opening experiences. Some people go through life with their eyes wide shut. Today I had more of a ripping-my-eyelids-off-my-face experience.
I worked with some very…challenging high school students today. I was invited to be a guest speaker about the 1990 Oka Crisis involving the Mohawk people of the Kanehsatake Reservation outside Montreal, Quebec. For my older readers, you’ll remember how the Canadian military converged on this small community over a territorial land dispute between the Mohawk people and a golf course owner looking to expand his operation onto Mohawk territory.
Many of the students I spoke to today are Aboriginal students. I thought they would be 100% into what I had to share because it involved other First Nations people. The students recently learned about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so I thought this would be a perfect segue for my discussion. I could not have been more wrong! These kids are in a modified program and have been treated poorly by the education system for most of their school career. They were no more interested in hearing what I had to share with them than a bulldog is in sharing his supper! I knew I had my work cut out for me, but was confident I would win them over.
But hang on...They didn’t care! Here I was trying to talk to them about the basic rights afforded to all Canadians being denied to the Mohawk people in this crisis and they didn’t care. How on earth could this be possible when the majority of the students in the room were First Nations students? This was when I lost my lids. Wasn’t this important to them on a personal level?
So I rolled up my sleeves and I dug my heels in a little deeper. I was there to go over the Charter, but what a cumbersome thing THAT is to look at! These kids are not strong readers, and asking them to look over my four-page, already condensed document was much like what I imagine pulling teeth from an alligator must be like – dangerous and more than a little yucky.
I told them it was a pig of a document and threw it over my shoulder asking how many of them felt like reading all that “Blah, blah, blah”. My eyelids were starting to crawl back to their rightful place when I noticed a smile creep across some of those downturned lips. Ok, so maybe I can get their attention again with a little realism. I told them I agreed it made my own eyes roll to the back of my head when I thought about reading the Charter. I asked them what they would say if I told them I thought there only about 15 words in that entire document that I thought were worth reading. They laughed. I told them it was true and I was going to show them.
Summarizing and Note Taking
They already had a copy of my condensed version of the Charter (still four, very full pages) and I pulled up my copy on the LCD projector. I showed them how most of what is written in the Charter is just “fluff” as far as I was concerned and that we could just cross it out and disregard it. I showed them the key words and got them to highlight them. I showed them how they can cross out entire sections and sum them up by just writing the main idea. Then they highlighted that newly written main idea. I started them off to show them how to do it, and then I asked them to try it on their own.
By the time we were finished with that big wordy Charter, we highlighted a total of 18 words. They said they felt guilty marking up the Charter, but I told them there was no point in kidding themselves that they would ever read that entire document. I told them that learning less than 20 words was going to prove to be more beneficial to them in the long run.
This strategy is a pretty common one and is a really great cognitive tool for students of any age. Cognitive learning theories (Grider, 1993) tell us that when we learn, we are hooking new information onto that which we already know. Having students summarize a text requires that they think about and make judgements about pieces of information:
“Is this part duplicating what I already highlighted?”
“Can I reword this to use simpler terms?”
“Is this piece of information really adding to my understanding?”
What these questions translate into is a subject finding a way to hook the new information onto something already known about the topic. These questions force the subject to think about the new information and actually find a place for it to live in that great big filing cabinet in the head. This cognitive process ultimately makes it easier for a subject to recall the information at a later date.
Cues, Questions and Advance Organizers
Filing and organization just might be the secret keys to learning something new. I know this, so I tried to slide a few nuggets of cognitive gold while working with those tough kids I was telling you about.
These strategies all require a student to actively engage in thinking about what they are about to learn. They cause a subject to pause and consider how new information fits with existing schemas. The best thing, from the perspective of a subject struggling to remember information, is that all three of these strategies put the focus on key points, rather than oddities (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, Malenoski, 2007)). Pitler et al. describe these strategies in great detail in “Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works” (2007).
Cues should be like Flash files – in your face and really obvious. Their purpose is to let a person know that something really important is coming up next; something worth paying attention to. This in-your-face trigger is a great cognitive tool, isn’t it? The response to a cue is something like this, “Hey brain! Are you with me on this one? Whatever happens next goes in the "stuff-to-keep-drawer”
Questions work the same way. Great teachers know the value of great questions. Asking questions that promote Bloom’s higher-level thinking kick the filing system into overdrive “Oh, I know the answer to this one! I know that character behaved in this way because he is living during the Russian Revolution. That means he’s too afraid to let his nephew know where his parents are in case the Secret Police are lurking in the shadows!” or something like that. Higher-order questions, and especially longer wait times, allow students to dip into their existing knowledge base (Pitler et al, 2007). They find ways to hook new information onto something they already know.
I admit it was tough finding the right questions to ask these kids today. I started out a little rusty, but it didn’t take me long to find my groove. The great thing about cues and questions is that students will let you know what is working and what isn’t. The trick is to listen with your eyes more than your ears!
Luckily my eyes told me they regularly glanced over my shoulder to look at what was next the agenda. I had my web site for the day’s discussion up on the LCD projector. I guess you could say it was an advance organizer because it clearly laid out what I had planned for students. Novak compares advance organizers to cognitive bridges (1980). These bridges are so effective because they link information a subject has previously learned to information they are about to learn. Again – another great cognitive tool because they force students to actively think about what they are learning.
So remember when I had my eyelids ripped off earlier today? Well they’re back in place now and I’m very much looking forward to closing them for in a little while. Luckily for me I know about these strategies because they really came in handy today!
