It's Not All About the Curriculum

After reading many articles, monographs and books as well as attending conferences all on the topic of education, here's what I've learned:

The most important criterion that maximizes student learning is teacher moderation, system leaders attending professional development with their teachers, differentiated instruction, critical thinking, safe schools initiatives, coaching, teacher collaboration, and the list goes on (subject-verb agreement error intended).

Other related research-based evidence seems to indicate that what really makes a lasting impact is student mental health initiatives, connecting with positive adult role models, inquiry, 21st century skills, character education... (again: subject-verb agreement error intended).

From conversations with many excellent teachers, I've learned that what goes around comes around, the pendulum has swung too far the other way, we need more money for books, the system/board/jurisdiction is top heavy and out of touch -- when was the last time they were in a classroom? -- what we really need is more (fill in the blank) and less (fill in the blank).

Many of the above arguments are equally passionate, well-reasoned and researched.  

Stakeholders?  I could give yet another compelling list of what parents and taxpayers think are the most important factors.  When was the last time you heard a rant that starts with, Well when I was a student...?

Speaking of students: yes, let's not forget them.  The board I'm part of just held a student voice forum in which we discovered that students want more group work/less group work; more smartboard activities/less smartboard activities; showing movies good/showing movies bad...

Reflecting on this dizzied me until one day I was introduced to a theological model -- quite the leap, I know -- which suggests that the quest for ultimate spiritual truth is not as simple as exclusively examining  the holy scriptures.  Wars have been waged over the disagreement on how the holy texts inform us about truth.  The Wesleyan Quadrilateral suggests that the quest for truth comes from the complex interaction of, yes, primarily scripture, but also tradition, reason and experience.

This got me thinking; and my thinking led me to unabashedly rip off the Wesleyan Quadrilateral to create my own model for what I'd like to call Educational Epistemology (fancy for informed practice).

Here's what I'm suggesting: informed practice -- whether we're talking about a board, a school or a classroom -- comes most definitely from starting with current policy, curriculum and research, but also considering educated reason (the science of human behaviour, for example) and experience  (real-time, on-the-ground as well as historic practice).

I've come to believe that those of us who are not in the classroom not only run the risk of alienating teachers when we tout the latest and greatest pedagogical thinking, we also often devalue their real concerns; when they tell us that won't work in their classrooms, we should listen very carefully. We should allow it to inform our thinking. On the flip side, I've also come to believe that too often the dismissal of current educational research comes not out of informed conscientious objection but rather out of fear of the unknown and/or -- quite frankly -- laziness.  So where does informed practice lie?  It lies in the intersection between policy and experience and it happens best when the two camps truly honour and value each other.

The same can be said of educated reason and policy or practice.  For example, one of the best books I've read about education is one which is not primarily about education.  It is Daniel Pink's Drive. In Drive, Pink argues that people are mostly motivated by intrinsic -- not extrinsic -- factors. Pink dedicates an entire chapter to education which, without going into the details, makes some very relevant points. Having said this, I wouldn't use the entirety of Daniel Pink's Drive as a blueprint to overhaul education. I would, however, strongly consider what his research says about how motivation and change happens; and I would look at Pink's  research in light of how our curriculum, policy guidelines and experience inform us.  That is, where do the circles intersect?

One of the reasons why I've been contemplating this as much as I have been lately is because next year I will be going back to the classroom. Tonight, I will lead a group of teachers as we examine the importance of student choice is developing secondary school reading programs. We will specifically discuss gender-specific book clubs, literature circles and classroom libraries.  I believe that what I will tell them is true. I've even practised some of what I will preach later today.  I do, however, have this niggling fear that next year when research meets practice -- my practice --  I'll be eating some of my words. More accurately, I'll be redefining informed practice as it lies in the sweet spot where everything I've learned  -- about education and all things closely related -- meets the 80 or so students with whom I will be entrusted.  In other words, I would hope that I will not rely solely on policy, on experience or on reason.  Rather, I would hope that all three will inform how I practice next year.

The Truth About Stories

I've thought about the power of stories lately both from a positive and a negative point of view. I recently read Thomas King's The Truth About  Stories.  Originally delivered as CBC Massey Hall lectures in 2003, King makes a strong case for the power behind the dialectic of conversation and the oral tradition vs the autocracy often engendered by the Western written tradition. I don't entirely agree with his premise.  I don't think it's totally fair to western thought, but the idea of a conversation coming from a more humble place than the written law isn't lost on me.

To sum up the positive: story has the power to move people like research and data can't; in King's words: "The truth about stories is that that's all we are."

I believe I mentioned the story of an educational company's CEO in a previous post. I took a couple of colleagues to hear him share his story. The short version is that the head of this educational company barely scraped though high school and that feat was mostly due to his tenacity but also in part to teachers who understood that his *learning style was nontraditional. One of my colleagues found his story so inspiring that he vowed to use his educational modification platforms to differentiate for his struggling students. 

In my 3 year tenure as a curriculum consultant, I've often shared stories to try to motivate the educators I've worked with. I've shared my own stories -- my favourite is that of my grade 8 teacher who assured me that I'd fail high school English because my spelling was so atrocious.  My point in sharing this story is to motivate teachers to look beyond what they think they see before them in their classrooms.  

I've also told stories I've heard from others. I've shared both failures and successes.  But sometimes I worry that I'm becoming that guy. You know that guy: the one who's always sharing the same stories? That guy whom people dismiss as high on feeling but low on substance? 

That's the negative possibility of story-telling in my estimation.  It's easy to dismiss as unsubstantiated opinion; sugary anecdote not backed up with research or data.  It's especially easy to dismiss stories when they're closely connected to the ego of the teller. 

I was recently at a conference in which one of the speakers -- an internationally renowned educator -- peppered her presentation with constant references to her status, achievements and jet-setting.  One table of teachers with whom I was familiar started to tally the number of times that she dropped the fact that she was currently a superintendent.  How unfortunate that, for these teachers, her ego undermined what was otherwise a well-researched and powerful message. 

As usual, I don't believe that the truth about sharing research to practitioners is a matter of either/or.  I believe it's a both/and.   

Stories are powerful.  According to King, it's all we are.  I would add two things in the case of telling stories with a didactic purpose (to move practitioners forward in their thinking): one is that the teller of stories should have a greater, nobler goal that drives the story -- and, as mentioned above, her ego should be in check. It also goes without saying that her stories should be powerful.  Two, is that  research and data can't hurt.

That's what I love about writers like Malcolm Gladwell. He manages to blend the two perfectly.

King ends every chapter/lecture with the same charge; at the risk of coming across egotistical, I will do likewise:  "[This story is] yours.  Do with it what you will.  Tell it to friends... forget it.  But don't say in years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story.  You've heard it now."
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* Learnstyle 

How We Unlearn How to Learn

Check out this very good blog post that speaks to how how we're naturally curious as children; how progressive educational practitioners gets that; and how it all changes the higher up we go in educational institutions.

http://pullnotpush.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/reggio-emilia-high-school/

Celebrating Success

beyond the half-hearted, add-on cliché and seeing the power behind celebration

I was at a Special Education conference last spring and one of the speakers from Connecticut took time in his opening remarks to talk about how respected Ontario Special Education is world-wide.  I would have dismissed him as pandering to the crowd if it weren’t for the fact that I’d heard another speaker this past winter say pretty much the same thing.  She was from New York and she was talking about literacy. 

And then there were the two speakers from Western Canada two summers ago; they were talking about assessment and gave Ontario similar kudos.

I think sometimes we need to stop and be reminded of the good work we do.  When an organization – educational or otherwise – makes great progress over a relatively short period of time, it comes from nothing short of monumental investment, effort and intentionality.  True success isn’t smoke and mirrors.  It’s wrought on the backs of visionaries and “ordinary” people within the organization who work very hard and need to be celebrated.  It comes through an honest assessment of what’s going on and an intentional plan for improvement.

The fact of the matter is that for organizations that change and grow and move forward, there is typically a core value that goes something like this: we can do better.  For this mantra to reap success, it needs to be in the context of a strategic plan followed by meticulous observation of the implementation at every stage, and ending with a reflection on successes and failures.  And when I say “ending”, it doesn’t actually ever really end.  It’s a cycle.

The result of companies that operate like this is that its employees are driven to attain excellence and for the most part they get excellence.

What doesn’t often get placed in the above excellence equation, however, is the importance of celebrating good work. It’s interesting, for example, that Tuckman’s Four Stages of Group Development (1965) were:

Forming

Storming

Norming

Performing

Interesting, because in 1977, Tuckman felt the need to add a fifth stage: Adjourning. This is the stage during which a

“group comes together to celebrate the efforts of one another for completing the project. Adhesive groups will always come together at the end of a project and commend each other for their efforts, because each understands that parts of the project could not be completed without the other” (http://fallingkeys.wordpress.com).

I think too often, in too many companies, this is a stage that gets left off or glossed over; but in the long-term health of an organization, I believe it's vitally important.

In my role of Curriculum Consultant, I recently had 20 secondary teachers in a room.  I thought that it would be good to show them this video, “I Will Not Let an Exam Result Decide My Fate”

My thinking was, it’ll kick off the day with something provocative and timely from pop culture.  It could polarize people because the young Hip Hop artist doesn’t really give a balanced picture.  He pretty much just rants about what was wrong with his education, primarily focusing on how it wasn’t relevant or connected to the real world. It’ll make for some pretty solid discussion…

That was my thinking.

For the most part, the video accomplished what I thought it would.  The reactions by and large were positive.  People found the message of the video both provocative and insightful.

There was one outlier reaction, however, that I wasn’t anticipating.  One teacher said, “Rocco, I get why we’re watching this video, but I’m sick of people always telling me that I’m not doing enough.  I know that many of my colleagues and I are doing some very creative, authentic things in our classrooms and I resent always being told otherwise.”

It occurs to me that it seems like I'm contradicting myself here.  Am I saying that we push people in our organizations to do better or am I saying that we need to celebrate.  I'm saying that we need both and that we need to differentiate when the time is for each.

To clarify further, I know that for some people in any given organization, celebrating success is the not the answer.  There are teachers in our system that struggle with change – teachers who don’t get the paradigm shift of the 21^st Century.  For these individuals, there are other answers: coaching, perhaps. 

But that’ll be the topic of my next blog post: “Differentiating Growth and Change Management”… or something like that J

The In-class Essay

I drove my daughter to the bus stop today.  She’s currently attending a community college.  We spent the better part of our 20 minute car ride talking about an essay she had to do for one of her classes.  She said, “a lot of students are mad at the teacher… I don’t know… I’ve never had to write an essay like this.” 

            When she says “like this” she’s talking about the process not the content.  If memory serves, the process goes something like this:

Handwritten rough copy is done in class. Rough copy + articles which will be cited go into a folder.  The rough copy gets marked up by the teacher for structure only.  The students get their first copy back and – given the teacher comments on structure – are given the opportunity to do a second draft with proper APA format/citations.  It all goes back into the folder.  At a later date, they get all their work back and get to word-process it in a timed period in a computer lab.

One of my daughter’s comments: “The kids don’t get how they can improve through her feedback.”

A little bit of context: a) my daughter, although fairly successful in the academic stream in high school, has much higher kinesthetic and art intelligences; b) she’s in an Educational Assistant Program.

At the risk of generalizing, I say this to make the point that my daughter is probably typical of college students; I would venture to say that most kids who take college programs are those who don’t necessarily love academia and are much stronger in the other intelligences.  So we’re asking college students to write an academic paper and then we’re denying them the collaborative editing help and the tools such as online style guides and so on, which, ironically, we as instructors would never deny ourselves when we’re faced with a significant writing task?

            Over the past year, I’ve heard from some very passionate secondary teachers who use similar elaborate processes.  The similarity: most of the work is done in class. 

            I think that there are a couple of forces at work here.  Let’s deal with the obvious one first.  Teachers feel – pick your adjective: angry, frustrated, violated, exasperated – when students plagiarize. Hence, the in-class work is an answer to cheating.  The obvious question to that is: Is the pedagogy driven by a quest for quality student learning or is it driven by the fear of plagiarism?

           

            It’s actually not all that different than a crime prevention argument: do we put societal structures in place which make it more difficult for the minority of criminals to commit their crimes while at the same time creating a bleak and uninspiring culture for the majority who don’t commit crimes?  Or, to return to the classroom, why not create a culture of academic honesty and deal with the handful of those who cheat when they cheat as opposed to structuring our curriculum to make plagiarism difficult, thereby hamstringing our curriculum? I for one would much rather assume and foster a culture of integrity.

            It should be noted that there is more to this discussion than the avoidance of plagiarism.  The evaluation policy, as stated in Growing Success, 2010, states that “To ensure equity for all students, assignments for evaluation and tests or exams are to be completed, whenever possible, under the supervision of a teacher” (p. 45).  Interpretation (especially for many secondary English teachers): the in-class essay. 

            Interestingly – in case you need some context – the very next paragraph begins with: “Teachers will take various considerations into account before making a decision about the grade to be entered on the report card.  The teacher will consider all the evidence collected through observations, conversations and student products…”

           

            I’ve written this piece over the last month and a half, because I haven’t really been sure what I wanted to say… not for the lack of things to say.  Quite the opposite.  Other topics/issues to consider (for other blog posts : ):

·        No homework in France… what’s up with that?

·        The famous Finnish system.  I’m going to read Finnish Lessons.  I’ll get back to you on that one.

·        Forget the in-class essay; how about the adjective-less Essay (capital E intended)?  What happened to authentic learning?  I heard one teacher (from another jurisdiction) talk with great pride how his ENG4U1 Shakespeare Essay, with all the critical quotes and MLA bells and whistles, is his “gatekeeper” (his word, not mine) for kids who want to go to university.  You can’t get a 70% in his class unless you’re successful with this essay.

The above ideas are pretty raw.  Like I’ve already mentioned, I started this post well over a month ago and have hesitated to put it up here.  I say this to encourage you to comment, question and disagree.  I genuinely want to know what you – the dozen or so people who will read this : ) – think.

Tuesday (Last) iPad Tips VII

Hey Folks

I'm running out of stuff to say, so this will be the last Tuesday Tips

Dropbox

- Dropbox is a cloud storage for files. It only gives 2 Gig of free space, but there are free and pay options to increase space.

- A nice feature they've added lately is that you can set up a sharing folder so that if you have big files to share you can do it through Dropbox without giving someone your username and password

- Just to be clear, you can set up a dropbox account on all your devices; when you add, delete or change a file, dropbox syncs on all your devices

Google Drive

- As above, google drive (formerly google docs, if I'm not mistaken) is google's answer to cloud storage, document creation, saving and collaboration

- When I told a colleague about Dropbox a few weeks ago, he said, "Pfft, I use Google Drive."

- Call me old school but I like the visual folder/organization look of Dropbox better

Goggles 

- part of the Google app, Goggles allows you to scan an object with your camera; it then goes online recognizes the object and finds a website for that object

Cheers folks -- It's been fun! All the best with your iPads.

Tuesday's iPad Tips VI

Remind101"Remind101 provides a safe way for teachers to text message students and stay in touch with parents. It is 100% free and is used by over 200,000 teachers, students and parents to send millions of messages every month."

Explain Everything ($2.99)

can be used as an interactive whiteboard. "... let's you annotate, animate and narrate explanations and presentations." Check out this example on Youtube.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4JOsrEsyo0

 Noteshelf ($5.99)

like Paper 53, but not so artsy and way more productivity-able (what's the word I want here :). I was told by an English teacher from Peel that with this app, you can create a notebook per student. You can put a custom cover on each notebook and access each from a virtual shelf. She uses the notebooks to collect assessment evidence (conversations, observations, anecdotes, photos of work, etc.) for each student. Unlike Paper 53, you can type, record audio and bring in photos.