Following the UbD thinking, the most essential work we do in designing curriculum is in setting goals. What is our purpose? To what end, schooling? Shall we create schools with classrooms that are “information dumps”, where students attempt to memorize as much data as possible? This seems to be what the standards and tests movements are all about.

On his blog today, Grant has written about a different vision of schooling, that sets a much more humanistic and profound goal for students: “not just to know things but to be a different person – more mature, more wise, more self-disciplined, more effective, and more productive in the broadest sense.”

If you find you agree that schooling is about creating mature, wise, and effective people, you’re also likely to find, upon examination, that our schools are not yet setup for this. Do the major assessments reflect these goals? I don’t mean whether the one-off assembly or various extracurricular activities aim toward the goal of creating better people (of course many do), I mean to ask whether the difference between success and failure for students is about not only knowing stuff, but in consistently demonstrating wisdom and effectiveness through performance. Is this the outcome tied to graduation? Or is graduation just about racking up test scores?

Here’s how Grant puts it:

What else might follow from thinking of performance, not knowledge, as the aim of education? We might finally realize the absurdity of marching through textbooks. You want to learn English or be a historian? You would think it very foolish if I said: OK, sit down and let’s march for years through a dictionary or an encyclopedia, A to Z. Want to learn to cook? Read the Joy of Cooking all the way through its 700+ pages – before ever setting foot in a kitchen? … Knowledge is only an indicator of educational success, not the aim. Thus, the conventional view of curriculum and the process of conventional curriculum writing must be wrong.

Grant’s piece will make you think hard about the goals of your curriculum. I urge you to read it: Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong. Really.

New on Pair-a-Dimes ‘The Pro-D Flip’ http://t.co/DrmV5pOI #sd43 #bced

October 18, 2011 6:29 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@datruss

David Truss

I’m sharing David Truss‘s excellent post about flipping professional development. Many educators are starting to understand the flipped classroom movement, but how many have “flipped” their PD?

For those of us with PLNs (Personal Learning Network) that include the edu-blogosphere, Twitter, Nings, etc., David’s explanation of how he chooses his PD will seem very familiar. Certainly, I know I’m much more intentional with my professional development choices as a result of online discussion and anytime learning.

If you don’t have a robust PLN, I’d recommend starting one. For a quick explanation of just one reason why a PLN could make you a better professional, study this visual, and read David’s post.

After plenty of attention from old media about the launch of Khan Academy, Khan’s a coveted speaker. He’s been making the rounds at conferences, trying to explain to educators why his strategies for flipping the classroom can be effective, and judging from the backchannel chatter on Twitter and subsequent posts in the education blogosphere, he’s not getting his point across as well as I’m sure he hopes.

For those who will no doubt inquire, here’s full disclosure: I do not work or advocate for Khan Academy or Sal Khan. I don’t work in a school using his products. I have watched some of his videos, heard him speak, read his written pieces, and downloaded his TED talk, but I do not know him personally.

However, I think I understand Khan’s point. My problem with the critics is that they apparently don’t.

What Khan is not saying is that Khan Academy or “flipping” class using KA videos is the panacea for ALL that ails education. He doesn’t claim that lecture is the best teaching strategy, or that he is a better lecturer than the teachers at your school. Further he doesn’t claim that his YouTube videos should replace teachers. He certainly does not claim that “the future of education lies in a disembodied voice that lectures [at] squinting students on a blinking screen.“

If you’re tweeting or blogging refutations to these imagined arguments, you’re engaged in classic Straw Man argumentation.

When I play back Khan’s presentations, what I hear is advocacy for greater connection between teacher and student. If you’re listening, you’ll hear him say teachers are too important to be disconnected from students, at the front of the classroom, lecturing. He criticizes the traditional classroom model where a lecture is given, then students leave to attempt solutions to difficult textbook problems, on their own, without much teacher support. To be fair, there’s still loads of this kind of teaching happening in our schools, and it’s this pedagogy at which Khan’s reform efforts are aimed.

by removing the one size fits all lecture from the classroom and letting students have a self-paced lecture at home, these teachers changed a fundamentally dehumanizing experience. In a traditional model, most of the teacher’s time is spent giving lectures and grading and whatnot. Maybe five percent of their time is actually sitting next to students and actually working with them. Now 100 percent of their time is… you’re humanizing the classroom (TED talk)

Khan does not want to replace teachers. He consistently claims his work should free up teachers to actually deepen connections between teachers and students – he argues that teachers are more important than the videos or the technology. He doesn’t claim he’s a better lecturer than other teachers, rather, he insists the pedagogy of lecture ‘in-the-room’ is the problem. Face-time with students should be focused on discussion, problem-solving, critical thinking exercises, not lectures. This is the beauty and genius of the flipped classroom strategy that KA follows. In the end, it’s not about the quality of the lecturer, it’s about the student’s ability to stop, start, rewind, and review “how-to” lectures that makes it powerful (not to mention the greater possibility for dynamic visuals that digital video holds over classroom lecture).

Khan began by making “how to” YouTube videos on how to work through textbook math problems. If you want proof that “how-to” videos are effective, search YouTube and look at the number of views (try this one). Or go into a commercial training program and check out video instruction. Or ask yourself how many times you’ve watched a video tutorial for a new product or service. Yes, this is classic lecture stuff, but made more effective with great visuals and by your ability go back and forth and to return to the video as needed. This way of learning “how to” works.

More disclosure: I think education, and math ed specifically, as “how-to” is wrong-headed, a complete misunderstanding of education’s purpose, and a bastardization of mathematics. My position on this is well-known and articulated here (“Math is Dead. Long Live Mathematics!“). We need more teaching that puts students in positions to articulate problems, plan how to solve them, and apply the solutions to the real-world. Teachers can then mentor “how to” on a one-on-one basis as necessary, or help students find the tool (calculator? computer application/spreadsheet?) that will do this for them.

However, I realize that many teachers are stuck with national/state math curricula that have a 19th century understanding of math. If you’re teaching math as “how to”, you’re much better off using class time for one-on-one tutoring through difficult problems instead of lectures that are more effective online. For this, the flipped classroom works.

I am a History and Social Sciences teacher that advocates and uses PBL. I won’t give an in-class lecture this year, and few online lectures. I have no plans to use KA videos because I think the “give info / memorize info / give info back” model of education doesn’t produce the kinds of learning that matters. But if you’re engaged in that kind of thing, flipping your classroom may be the best way to improve your students’ success with the material.

So stop with the luddite-esque hysteria over Khan Academy – it is neither accurate or necessary. And if you’re reacting out of defensiveness for your job, ask your students if they think you could be replaced by a computer. My guess is that you’ll feel validated, or you’ll find direction for professional growth.

We have all gone to school. We all know that school is organized around academic subjects like math, English, history and science. But why? -It is not easy to question something that everyone takes for granted. It is especially not easy when the very source of all our concerns in education can be easily traced to this one decision: to organize school around academic subjects. How else might school be organized? There is an easy answer to this: organize school around cognitive processes. In 1892, when the American high school was designed, we didn’t know much about cognition. Now we do. It is time to re-think school.

~Roger Schank

Dr. Schank’s short paper (.docx): “Everything You Think You Know About Education is Wrong”.

RogerSchank.com

@RogerSchank

“Honestly, the best thing to do would be to get rid of the AP Program, and just design a course that prepares students for the college-level experience.”

A few nights ago, we hosted a screening of the film Race to Nowhere (find screening locations on the film’s website.) The quote above is from Jay Chugh, an AP Biology teacher featured in the film, and it’s one that stuck with me when I first saw the film during its short theatrical run in Los Angeles last September. The film is the product of Vicki Abeles who had seen the strain in her children as they navigated school, homework, tutoring and extracurricular activities, and eventually a major crisis when her 12-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a stress induced illness. In trying to understand what was driving student pressure, Abeles began talking to experts and learned of the soaring rates of youth depression, suicide, cheating, and determined to do something. Hence, the film. Race to Nowhere makes many arguments around the central thesis that the competition our schooling culture pushes has dangerous consequences: “childhood has become indentured to test scores, performance and competition. We face an epidemic of unhealthy, disengaged, unprepared kids trying to manage as best they can.” The film takes aim in particular at the College Board’s Advanced Placement program, arguing that too many kids enter AP classes in search of weighted GPAs instead of deeper learning in subject areas about which they are passionate. The result, the film asserts, are stressed kids who have more to do than time available, and who don’t actually learn much. Abeles posted this selection of clips from the film as an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times:

Is Advanced Placement a problem? Perhaps. AP’s influence in education is complicated. Though it would certainly go a step too far to blame AP for all the problems of school pressure (Abeles doesn’t do this, the film finds many faults with schooling) there’s no doubt that courses like AP Biology and AP United States History are, as Chugh says, “a runaway train”. These two courses have evolved over the years to include so much content that it’s frankly impossible for students to learn all they must to feel well prepared for the AP Exam. Because teachers know there’s so much content to learn, and understandably perceive ‘coverage’ (lecturing) as the only way to get through it all, these courses frequently devolve into “stand and deliver” teacher-centered classes where students “sit and git”. This is Advanced Placement at its worst – anti-student, anti-21st-century-skills, “content is king” stuff. The New York Times recently ran a great feature story on “Rethinking AP“, laying out the arguments for why the College Board is trying to change Bio and U.S History, and why many schools are considering dropping the AP program altogether. The move to reform these courses is a good one, but it’s going to take some time as we learned this weekend – APUSH won’t get a change until 2013-14.

Video Op-Ed, at the NY Times: (http://video.nytimes.com/video/playlist/opinion/op-ed/1194833176718/index.html#1247466680941)

First of all, I think of the backchannel as the conversation that might otherwise normally happen in class within students’ minds, or between each other. It’s the communication that happens between two or more students about their experience of class and their own learning. To be clear, classes have always had backchannels of conversation, the difference now ist that technology allows us to put them to better use. When these conversations become public, students and teachers have an opportunity to learn from each other, and questions get answered, and issues get addressed.

Here are two ways that I have used Twitter as a backchannel:

1. Make a Class Account. This year, I created a “LIVE” Twitter account for my US History class. On our private class wiki, I shared the log-in information, and students are allowed to access the account during class. Students can post anything they wish in this backchannel, and we all see it.

An advantage to this common account is anonymity – it’s impossible to know who posted since we’re all using the same acct. It’s been my experience that some students will ask questions or make comments that could be very helpful only if they don’t risk embarrassing themselves. Of course anonymity also means freedom to be malicious with the class Twitter account, so I highly recommend a discussion of netiquette and integrity before giving this privilege to students.

Creating a common class account is easy. Just think of a name, create the Twitter account linked to YOUR email address, choose a simple password (school name?), and share the log-in information on your private class website.

I ran across this Twitter Matrix about a year ago on Mark Sample’s blog and it really helped me clarify my thinking about how I wanted to use Twitter to enhance student learning. I was clear that I didn’t want to use it just to be using it – if it wasn’t going to lead to greater learning, it was just going to be more noise for students.

I’ve been getting good results using Twitter as a backchannel during class, allowing me to engage with students in new ways. Those that aren’t ready to comment out loud during class will frequently post to the backchannel, allowing me a new way to check for understanding. And because they can post questions there that I see in the last few minutes of class, I can answer them before they leave, meaning no student leaves with misunderstandings that embed in their brain before they return the next day.

If you follow the link to Mark’s blog, you’ll notice he believes Twitter acts as a “snark valve” because tweets are “unfiltered, in effect, the same comment somebody might mutter under his or her breath, uncensored, no-holds-barred opining. Yet the students know classmates are following the course hashtag and at the very least that I am listening (and contributing) as well.  The backchannel assumes a Bakhtinian double-voiced discourse — using sarcasm both to show a kind of too-cool-for-school attitude but also to demonstrate that the student is in fact earnestly engaged with the material.”

How will you use Twitter? I hope the matrix leads to creative ideas. And if they do, kindly tweet me @MikeGwaltney, or leave a more lengthy comment here on my blog.

ITSC ’11 Mid-Day Three

My last day at ITSC 2011 began with a high-energy session by Dean Shareski (@shareski) and Alec Couros (@courosa). “Photos Across the Curriculum” challenged participants to consider how valuable images are in 21st century education. Dean’s assertion: “Visual Literacy today is as essential as reading and writing.”

To prove his thesis, Dean showed some great examples of how powerful pictures are in telling stories, and sent us all around the web to see and create images ourselves. Of course, issues of copyright (vs. “copyleft”) developed and Dean explained how to work with licensing, CC, etc. Here are some suggested resources:

• http://itscphotos.posterous.com – our session blog with the activities we completed
• http://creativecommons.org/ – great place to get media that are shareable and modifiable (search tool: http://search.creativecommons.org/)
• http://www.behold.cc/ – another great search tool
• http://www.tineye.com/ – reverse image searching
• http://flickr.com – a massive user-generated media host (try flickr groups!)

An essential question I left the session with: “What stories can my students tell with media, in my curriculum, that will help create meaningful and enduring learning?” Or, said differently, how can I get my students using media to meet my learning objectives?

Fortuitously, a PLN colleague tweeted at me during the session. Anna Deese (@mrsadeese) asked her students to explore environmental science using images to make a single piece of art. From looking at the result, I can imagine starting her students’ assignment with the question: “What does ever-increasing population mean for the environment?” Take a look at the resulting image and try to argue these students didn’t get the point:

Though I wasn’t feeling super creative this morning, I took a shot at answering Dean’s question in the spirit of one of my favorite quotes: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”, usually attributed to Lao Tzu. My image creation is below.

What stories will your students tell?

Day Two proved to be just as rewarding as the first day of ITSC.

After the bar had been set high by Jeff Utecht in the morning workshop, Scott McDonald and Scott Elias had work to do to impress, post-lunch. McDonald’s session was called “Making Meaningful Movies”, and focused on getting the most out of digital video-making assignments. Here are his tips:

• Keep it Simple.
• Write Clear Learning Goals linked to Curriculum. “Start at the End”
• Plan How to Share Movies at the beginning of the Project. Get an authentic audience.
• Teach How to Search for Sources, or Make a Source List.
• Be Clear about Source Citing requirements. Require they go in the Template or Storyboard.
• Practice Demonstrating Steps in iMovie (or the application you use) BEFORE class.
• Use Keynote or PPT to Storyboard. (Shot Sheet). Students have a Product before the Movie.

At 3:45, Scott Elias led a session called “Creating and Maximizing Learning Networks”, which presented some important research behind why networked learning is so powerful. Scott is a new Middle School principal in Fort Collins, CO, planning research for a doctorate in networked learning, so he brought a real ethos to the conversation – not that a guy with nearly 3,000 followers and more than 16,000 Tweets needs more street cred.

Being in Scott’s session was like being a kid in a candy shop – everything he was saying resonated, and fit some of my strongest current interests about learning. But Scott pushed the envelope a little bit, as he asked us to challenge some trendy notions about social networking and learning. Take for example our discussion of “hyper-connectedness” (click the image):

Group consensus on this topic seemed to be that our “always on” connectedness is neither good nor bad, but a reality of life today. Perhaps the most important thing here is awareness of it, and attention to its consequences. It was a great topic for discussion, and one that Scott challenged us to take home to our colleagues.

Besides picking up some references to academic studies about learning and social networks, I left with some ideas for reflection:

“Information by itself is meaningless – Information only takes meaning in the context of the social practices of the communities that give it cultural life.” We pick up so many bits of data through our networks, but how much of it is out of context and consequently useless? Perhaps the constant stream of information coming at educators from their PLNs seems relevant (and perhaps it all is), but it lacks meaning unless we can recreate the conditions from which it originated. Further, how many of us have stopped a colleague in the hallway at school and said “I heard this from so-and-so on Twitter” only to see eyes glazing over? Lacking the contextual understanding of Twitter as more than sharing about dinner plans or Justin Bieber, information coming from tweets is often seen as irrelevant.

“To move from social networking to social learning requires that the learner knows his colleague’s knowledge is authoritative, valuable, and available when needed.” We assume that if we put students together in groups, whether online or face to face, that social learning will result. But the truth is that the learners must be willing to “hear” and retain what their colleagues share. That means relationships of common interests and practices must be fostered and maintained. Of course, this is no different than what we know of pre-online networking. And consider this in light of the typical Professional Development events for teachers – some obvious insights here for why those events often seem like wasted time! (we considered the characteristics of good PD via chalkboard – click the image below)

“People are using technology to get what they need from each other, often bypassing traditional institutions and systems.” How much more obvious can this be than in 2011 with at least two political regimes falling in North Africa via the power of social networking? People will get the information they want via their online networks regardless of our efforts to prevent them. So what are the implications for teaching? Do we really believe that we can be the gatekeepers of information? Can we prevent students from reading, seeing, or creating media? No way. Take the other side of the coin – our access to information is limited only by the size of our networks. As our online networks grow, virtually all human knowledge is available quickly and cheaply (“the cost of information is fast approaching zero” ~@scottelias). Gone are the days when certain privileged groups held access to the power that knowledge brings. As should be obvious, democratization follows.

Another great day at #ITSC11. As you can see, this conference is not about technology.

Thanks for reading. I welcome your comments.

Day Two at ITSC ’11 began for me in Jeff Utecht’s session “Building Student Centered Blended Learning Environments”. For a summary, I can’t do any better than Ron Neufeld does above.

Jeff’s done this presentation before, and it shows – he’s a master presenter. I’ve been fortunate to present on the same topic a few times and my future presentations will be better from joining Jeff’s workshop today.

The session was absolutely crammed full of great ideas. Here are just a few ideas I’m chewing on through lunch:

1. “In-class Backchanneling means students never leave class with a misconception.” Providing a chat room during class allows students to ask questions and work through ideas quietly but publicly during classtime. The teacher can use the last minutes of class to answer the questions and lead important discussions that obliterate misconceptions before they are embedded in students’ minds. It’s too long to wait until the next class meeting.

2. “Forget about Digital Natives, kids in school today are either Web Natives or Mobile Natives, many of whom will never own a mouse or a desktop computer.” How different is the experience of the world for our students than it was for us at their age (or it is for us now)? The kids that enter our rooms have never known a time when they couldn’t access information they want. Why are we standing in the way of letting them? Why not leverage their online skills to have them learn meaningful content?

3. “We need to be comfortable being perpetual beginners: learning now occurs within shifting network environments not entirely under the control of the individual.” The rate of change today is faster than we can imagine and it’s impossible to keep up – as soon as educators are good at one thing, the environment for learning has changed. Learners today are networked full-time, but the technology and social nature of networks means their environments are changing all the time. We need to learn to adapt. As the Zen Master said hundreds of years ago, keeping a “Beginner’s Mind” is essential.

4. “Where’s your school in the continuum of technology integration?”

• Substitution: the computer substitutes for another technological tool, without a significant change in the tool’s function.
• Augmentation: the computer replaces another technological tool, with significant functionality increase.
• Modification: the computer allows for the redesign of significant portions of a task to be executed.
• Redefinition: the computer allows for the creation of new tasks, inconceivable without the computer.

How many of us can say our technology is really redefining our schools?

As you can see, Jeff gave us plenty to think about. I hope you’ll share your ideas by commenting. Thanks for reading.

The notes from Jeff’s Blended Learning session are in a Google Doc here.