Technology Integration – A response

While reading some recent blog posts coming from my Google community this week I came across this one from Andrew Marcinek who works as a Technology Integration Specialist.   Marcinek is writing about how technology has changed across time, but that it’s the teachers’ job to adapt and incorporate technology into their teaching.   He is confident that teachers have done that, and continue to do it, which is a great thing.

What struck me a little further along were these words,

From the advent of the chalkboard, to the integration of the iPad, technology has been provoking teachers to reexamine the way they deliver content and transfer information to their students. But, education has never been about technology or devices. It has always been about good teachers who deliver content or information to their students, adaptability, and a progressive mindset.

And later,

In short, the classroom teacher, who is an expert in his or her field is still going to command that room with the intellect and array of ideas, but now, with a dynamic device in place.

If you know me, you know that I’m skeptical about thinking about ‘delivering content’ and ‘transferring knowledge’ and ‘commanding the classroom’ as the principle role of teachers either with or without technology.   This may not have been Andrew’s intent, but those are the words that jumped out at me.  Is this language an improvement over traditional practice of days (hopefully) gone by?  What about technology as a tool of inquiry, or creativity, or a source of exceptional resources that lets the teacher’s role change from a transmissive one to one that evokes passion and interest from students?

Is it okay to use a shiny new tool to replicate ineffective practices?   I find myself asking this question a lot lately.

I’m also reminded that we need to be conscious of the wording we choose and for the meaning we interpret from blogs without the opportunity for a conversation with the writer.    Of course,  I’m just a comment away from starting that conversation so I had better do that!

PBL Experts Are Among Us

Originally Posted by Brenda Sherry on Feb 8, 2013 in Voices From the Learning Revolution,  Voices

For a long time I’ve watched my husband Steve, a drama teacher, work his magic in his classes and dramatic productions. Lately, I’ve been reading posts from core subject teachers (e.g., science, math, history) who are beginning to move from the transmissive pedagogy more likely to be found in traditional subjects and wanting to explore a more student-centered, inquiry, or project-based approach.

This growing urge among teachers to put students center-stage has made me revisit some thoughts about the wealth of knowledge the arts teachers in our buildings have about this topic. The trouble is that they don’t often speak up. They quietly go about their work, often marginalized to the ‘extras’ or the ‘fluff’ of the school program — and yet, I would argue that they are the PBL experts that we seek!

Check out this quote from David Booth’s book called Story Drama. Doesn’t this sound a lot like the project-based classroom many of us yearn to create?

This is the drama teacher’s struggle: listening, watching, setting up situations that will foreshadow the direction of the journey, knowing when to intervene, when to use a particular strategy to open up discussion, to move the students into action, to cause them to pause, to reflect, to rethink, and all this without predetermining the learning, the content, the meat of the lesson.

What hit me is that this quote really typifies the kind of work we all ought to be doing in our classrooms. The delicate dance of teaching involves watching, inspiring, coaching, providing choices, respecting, motivating and providing rich content experiences…such a complex task indeed!

So what are the fundamentals that we might we borrow from the arts teachers to support student-directed learning in other domains?

Arts teachers know that knowledge is a private reflection until we give it social value

This is really the key to much of our discussion about 21st century learning these days. New tools afford us the opportunity to articulate our understanding in new ways and make it far more accessible — no longer just text-based, and no longer created for just one teacher, or just one class. Audiences have moved from the single classroom to the global community.

In much the same way that students are motivated by the performances in arts education, student engagement goes up when students are creating artifacts to share with their community, either virtually or face to face — or they correspond with people who have experiences to share that relate to their own studies — or they bring their questions and new understandings to experts (e.g., scientists, authors, or other classes) via online conversations.

Arts teachers know how to build communities where all voices are valued and taking risks is safe

This might be one of the most difficult parts of transforming the classroom from a teacher-directed space to a student-focused space. Arts teachers have expertise in this area.

New skills such as accountable talk, self-regulation, and the ability to build and maintain a comfortable, equitable and safe space for communicating need to be acquired by both teachers and students. How does that happen in an arts classroom? Team-building, trust-building, conflict resolution and teacher modeling of effective feedback helps that emerge over time. Routines are established that teach students how to cooperate; how to lead sometimes, and how to be led by peers other times.

In the arts classroom, effective teachers also participate as co-learners; sometimes leading, sometimes letting students take the lead, always modeling the kinds of interactions they are hoping to see within the learning community. It’s crucial that they sometimes play the role of ‘student’ in order to do this modeling of what learning looks like.

Not only do arts educators create supportive social environments, they promote risk-taking by stressing the real work of the arts. Students BECOME actors, painters, dancers and musicians and they explore with the teacher who invites them into this ‘tribe’ through modeling the ways of BEING and DOING in their particular domain.

Shouldn’t this happen in other subject areas? As Seymour Papert puts it: “(B)eing a mathematician, again like being a poet or a composer or an engineer, means doing rather then knowing or understanding.”  Authentic projects can bring students into “being and doing” as they personally connect to curriculum. We don’t have to be arts educators to employ this potent learning strategy.

Arts teachers are skilled at differentiation

Differentiation is the name of the game in the arts classroom. Most often the courses are open, bringing together students with a variety of backgrounds and abilities. Individuals are valued for their unique strengths that make team work more effective. Through the use of technology, teachers in other subject areas are beginning to see how students can blend images, sound, music, and text to create powerful messages and artifacts that allow all students to be successful.

Teachers of the arts know this secret: feedback that is immediate, descriptive and supportive of the whole group changes the role of assessment — and students often share in this process through peer and self-assessment.

Arts teachers approach learning as a balance of process & product with a focus on reflection

Arts educators believe that process, structures and techniques are important to their craft, and that since the arts are meant to be shared, a product is equally important. This understanding of balance keeps the focus on acquiring and improving skills while also creating public artifacts that demonstrate this learning.

The work of the arts is never quite finished, and reflection is a constant part of the process. Imagine rich portfolios of students’ work as scientists, historians or mathematicians, expanding and demonstrating increasing mastery throughout their years at school.

So how do you get help from teachers of the arts?

One thing is a given – inquiry-based approaches involve following students along paths that you might not be able to predict – and that involves responsive teaching. I’d recommend that you go and search out your arts teachers. They are usually really passionate about their subject area, just as you are, and may be eager to share their expertise.

For starters you might ask some of these questions to get a conversation going (and glean an invitation to observe):

• What techniques are used to build an effective community of learners?
• What strategies and structures are put in place to manage a classroom that focuses on discussion, sharing and reflection?
• How do teachers handle the fact that the endpoint isn’t always what is planned or expected?

Student Voice and Student Agency

I’m always looking for project topics that I can bring into schools that I work with in my role as a technology coach.  I recently came across this little project in Larry Ferlazzo’s blog that, while simple, has deeper elements that I love: student voice, inclusive schools, working from student strength and passion, as well as the added bonus of using technology to enrich the message.

The idea originates from author Daniel Pink and his book Drive where he suggests that students are motivated by a sense of purpose and want to contribute to bigger issues, and that connections within the community can help students understand their value, further motivating a learning stance and the idea of taking purposeful action to make the world a better place.

Here is a description of Dan Pink describing the idea:

Here is a video that outlines the “One Sentence Project” which could be used with students:

Here is an example of how one teacher used this in the classroom:

How could you see using this project in your context?  With students? With teachers/school leaders?

What other ideas do you have that focus on student voice and student passion?   I’d be very grateful for some examples and ideas from our community here that could push my thinking about this.

Copyright Matters – Canada!

Many of you will have already seen this, but you can now download the newly updated version of Copyright Matters.

Students and teachers now more freedom with images, music and other web-based works so it’s good news!

Check out page 12 which I found most relevant to my work in schools:

Pedagogical Documentation

Our Ministry of Ed recently released a monograph called Pedagogical Documentation that is based upon the Reggio Emilia approach for early education. This philosophy is grounded in the idea that as educators become more precise in their observation of the work of children, they will be better able to guide them into new learning experiences – essentially, using assessment for learning! You can read more about my summary of the Reggio Emilia approach here, but the core principles are:

• A holistic approach to educating the whole child
• Learner-Centred
• A carefully organized environment engages children in a stimulating learning environment
• Children are encouraged to inquire, observe, record, reflect upon and share their experiences
• Community members are involved members of the learning community
• The delight in learning is a major goal of this project approach

In Pedagogical Documentation, our Ministry makes the following statement which I think fits nicely with the way that many of us are trying to transform our classrooms with technology tools:

As educators become more adept in the use of documentation, they embrace it not so much as a technical process but as an attitude toward teaching and learning. They understand the value of knowing their students and how they thing so that learning is maximized. This transformational change moves the focus away from product and “becomes an approach of knowing, making it possible for the adult to be and know together with the child” so that the students’ interests, thinking and understanding drive instruction (Turner & Wilson, 2010).

Help me unpack this a little more – here’s what I’m grappling with…

How might our conceptions of teaching and learning change if digital documentation played a bigger role?

How might documentation make assessment more authentic?

What happens to our thinking about public and private knowledge?

Hoping to hear your thoughts on this!

Response to “Teachers’ Unions are Obsolete” by Margaret Wente, Globe and Mail (January 13, 2013)

Welcome Guest Blogger – Jessica Patrick

Jessica Patrick is a teacher-librarian from Upper Grand DSB who, like many Ontario teachers, is diligent about keeping up with the constant learning that is required of educational professionals.   She has given me permission to publish her response to Margaret Wente’s recent article from the Globe and Mail which is Jessica’s attempt to share some of the real facts about the transformation that is occurring in education.  Ms. Wente chose to quote Salman Khan as her one and only expert on education…hmmm…I bet there will be teachers who will have a comment on that.  A better source might be Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley in their most recent publication called The Global Fourth Way, where they highlight Ontario as one of 4 outstanding educational systems along with Singapore, Alberta and Finland.   Thanks so much for sharing your letter,  Jessica!  

Re: “Teachers’ unions are obsolete” Saturday, January 12

Margaret Wente’s commentary is just one more example of the uninformed media coverage surrounding teachers and education.  She states that “[a]lmost every aspect of our lives has been transformed since grandma went to school.  Yet the education industry is remarkably impervious to change.”  Perhaps Ms. Wente’s ‘extensive’ research for this piece involved peeking her head into a classroom and observing that yes, students do still sit in desks (some of the time) and yes, they still listen when the teacher talks (most of the time).  However, I’m not sure this means that education is “impervious to change.”

Is Ms. Wente aware of the significant movement from teacher-directed towards student-directed learning?  Does she know what project-based learning is?  While “grandma” most likely completed her work on her own, students are now involved in collaborative learning.  Completing research through inquiry circles, discussing and dissecting literature through literature circles, solving math problems, and completing science experiments are just a few examples of the many ways in which teachers now have students learning from their peers and thus enhancing their own learning.  In addition, there is an emphasis on learning that is authentic, meaningful, and rooted in students’s own interests.  For teachers who for decades planned their units down to the fine details, they have had to make huge changes in their pedagogy and leap into the unknown and unpredictable world of student-directed learning.  Today’s story has led to a question about why some communities can’t access water? Okay, well then how are we going to answer that?  And suddenly today’s teacher is off and running with the students, finding resources, helping groups form questions, and later trying to figure out how this exciting research might fulfill some of the many, many expectations of a constantly updated curriculum.

Is Ms. Wente familiar with the massive changes in assessment that have occurred over the past few decades?  As well as huge changes in teaching and learning, approaches to and regulations about assessment have been, and continue to be, transformed.  Again, in her ‘extensive’ research for this piece, I’m sure she read the entire document Growing Success, which all teachers were expected to learn and put into practice beginning in 2010.  I’m sure she spoke to teachers and administrators about the importance of focus boards, immediate feedback, success criteria, and differentiated instruction.  And let’s not forget the huge amount of testing required by the provincial government, including the annual grade 3 and 6 EQAO tests (which, incidentally, the government will not release the cost of), the recently required 6-week cycles under the School Effectiveness Framework, and much, much more.

Finally, I wonder if Ms. Wente ever goes on-line to research her opinion pieces.  She mentioned in her commentary that “[o]ther fields have been revolutionized by new technology and new ideas.  Why can’t education do the same?”  Is she kidding?  She only has to do a simple Google search to find some incredible examples of how technology is being used in schools.  At my elementary school alone, students are responding to literature on their own blogs, creating graphic novels on Comic Life, completing math problems on the Smartboard, checking their homework on our school wiki, and deconstructing ads on-line.  Two of our grade 3 classes just used ipads to film t.v. commercials about the importance of going to school.   And it’s not just the students learning technology; it’s the teachers too.  Last year, as many teachers do regularly, I spent $700 of my own money to pursue an Additional Qualification course. This one was about technology.  In the course there were several teachers who had been teaching for decades.  They were intimidated by technology but they knew how important it was for them to integrate it into their practice, so they spent the money and the countless hours necessary to make this happen.  Ms. Wente might want to have a look at the ECOO web site to see how teachers are embracing technology and using it to engage and challenge their students.  While she’s at it, Ms. Wente should try googling Royan Lee, Aviva Dunsiger, Colin Harris, Brenda Sherry, and Peter Skillen (or follow them on Twitter).  Education absolutely is being “revolutionized by new technology and new ideas,” and it’s because of teachers such as these who continuously go to great lengths to change, adapt, and improve the education that we provide to our students.

To suggest that our education system is “impervious to change” is an absolute falsehood.  I wish I could say the same about newspaper editorials.

Jessica Patrick

Elementary Teacher-Librarian

Error recovery vs failure avoidance

I just love this clip from Randy Nelson – formerly from Pixar.  He explains how Pixar finds graduates who have depth, breadth, communication and a collaborative nature.

As educators I think there is a lot we can learn from his view about error recovery.  Nelson mentions that if we need graduates who will be innovators, we need to focus on their ability to recover from error rather than avoid failure – interesting to think about in our current system – are we nurturing students who can think of errors as learning opportunities?   He mentions that the proof of the portfolio is better than the promise of a resume – are we getting closer to seeing that development through the availability of technology?