Want to improve teaching effectiveness? Listen to teachers — and make it possible for teachers to spend substantive time listening to each other. Kudos to Metlife for providing important new evidence to support this much-needed reform strategy.
via Advancing the Teaching Profession: Latest MetLife Survey Confirms the Power of Teacher Collaboration.
It’s back!!!
Plans are shaping up for an amazing 3rd Annual Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute, July 12-15, 2009 in Manchester, NH USA (near Boston).
In addition to master educators and edtech pioneers, the Constructing Modern Knowledge 2010 faculty includes history educator James Loewen and bestselling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me; popular provocateur and author, Alfie Kohn; MacArthur Genius and incomparable school reformer, Deborah Meier; and children’s author, illustrator and animator, Peter Reynolds. Cynthia Solomon, Brian Silverman, Sylvia Martinez (that’s me!), Gary Stager and John Stetson round out the amazing faculty.
Constructing Modern Knowledge is a minds-on institute for educators committed to creativity, collaboration and computing. Participants have the opportunity to engage in intensive computer-rich project development with peers and a world-class faculty. Inspirational guest speakers, pre-conference expedition and social events round out the fantastic event.
Constructing Modern Knowledge is about action, not listening to speakers. Attendees work and interact with educational experts committed to maximizing the potential of every learner. The rich learning environment is filled with books, computers, robotics materials, art supplies, toys and other objects to think with.
The real power of Constructing Modern Knowledge emerges from the collaborative project development of participants. Each day’s program consists of a discussion of powerful ideas, on-demand mini tutorials, immersive learning adventures designed to challenge one’s thinking, substantial time for project work and reflection.
21st Century educators need to develop their own technological fluency and understand learning in order to meet the changing needs and expectations of their students. Constructing Modern Knowledge will help participants enhance their tech skills, expand their vision of how computers may enhance the learning environment and leave with practical classroom ideas.
Spend four cool summer days in New England making puppets roar, robots dance, animations delight, movies move, simulations stimulate, photos sing and leave with memories to last a lifetime!
Each participant receives a suite of open-ended creativity software from Tech4Learning, LCSI, Inspiration Software, FableVision and other members of The Constructivist Consortium free-of-charge for use at Constructing Modern Knowledge and beyond. The software alone is worth the registration fee!
There is also a July 11th preconference Science and History Tour of Boston available for a nominal fee. Explore the future at the MIT Museum and visit the past during a private guided tour of the Boston Freedom Trail.
The institute is less than an hour’s drive from Boston in picturesque Manchester, New Hampshire. Free transportation is available from the convenient and affordable Manchester Airport. Discount hotel accommodation has been arranged at the institute venue.
Constructing Modern Knowledge is sensitive to the budgets of schools and educators by keeping registration costs affordable and by offering school/district team discounts. The institute is appropriate for all K-12 educators, administrators and teacher educators – private or public. CEUs are available for an additional fee.
Save $75 on early bird registrations! Register online now!
Sylvia
Reflections from previous years:
Last week posts from two popular edubloggers hammered home the same point – that technology is going to make an impact on education whether we are ready or not.
These horses are out of the barn – Doug Johnson, Blue Skunk Blog
There are some educational “truths” that we can’t change, even if we wanted to. These educational technology resources, annoyances, and conditions are here to stay despite some educators denial, resistance and fast grip on the status quo.
I Don’t Need Your Network (or Your Computer, or Your Tech Plan, or Your…) – Will Richardson, Weblogg-ed
When do we stop trying to fight the inevitable and start thinking about how to embrace it?
As usual, the students are way ahead of the curve. They don’t need a blog to tell them that their access to learning technology is being denied, meaning not just Internet access, but access to personal technology.
I blogged about this yesterday based on student focus group data, but here’s the qualitative data from over 280,000 K-12 students supporting the same thing. (Data from Speak Up 2008)
| Student response to: Besides not having enough time in your school day, what are the major obstacles to using technology in your school? (Check all that apply) | Grade 6-8 | Grade 9-12 |
| School filters or firewalls block websites I need to use |
34% |
51% |
| Teachers limit our technology use |
34% |
36% |
| I cannot access my personal email account or send email or IM to classmates |
31% |
29% |
| I cannot use my own computer or mobile devices |
30% |
32% |
| There are rules against using technology at my school |
25% |
26% |
| Internet access is not fast enough |
18% |
22% |
| None of the above |
16% |
14% |
| My assignments don’t require using technology |
12% |
11% |
| Software is not good enough |
12% |
15% |
| Computers or other tech equipment are not available |
11% |
11% |
| Teachers don’t know how to use the technology |
8% |
13% |
| I am unable to access the Internet |
8% |
7% |
| I don’t have the skills I need |
6% |
5% |
When 34% of today’s 6-8th graders say their teachers limit them from using technology, what does this mean for the future? I think what children are learning is that teachers are out of touch with the real world, and worse, that school is where you literally power down and wait to be told what to do.
OK, granted — not every student has visions of exemplary learning when we ask them about technology. BUT, we simply can’t ignore this either. Many of these students ARE interested in learning.
It means we are telling them that they must achieve, but preventing it at the same time. And there is no one wiser to hypocrisy than a teenager. We run the risk of losing a generation of young adults who are taking a good hard look at the way the real world works and comparing it against the artificial limits placed on them in school. And when we tell them “it’s for your own good” we simply lose all credibility.
According to the student Speak Up 2008 data, only one-third of high school students who participated in the poll think their school is doing a good job preparing them for the jobs of the future. Think this is just kids whining? Nope – even fewer numbers of their parents think that. Yet, a majority of school principals (56 percent) say their schools are doing a good job. Who is kidding whom?
So this is straight from the horse’s mouth, not edublogger ponderings … what are we gonna do about it?
Sylvia
PS And do you know what YOUR students would say about this? Find out! Sign up for Speak Up 2009 (survey open until Dec 23, 2009.)
Yesterday I wrote about a report on What Works: Effective Technology Professional Development. Today, unfortunately, I have the other side of the story. Yes, it’s possible to do professional development that actually decreases the chance that teachers will integrate technology into the classroom.
This is from the Student Speak Up survey project, where students, parents, teachers, and administrators answer questions about technology in their academic and personal lives.
Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow, who runs the Speak Up project sent me this input from a focus group of 40 high school students in California in March 2009 (and gave me permission to publish it.)
Students told me that they had better access to technology at school before we (meaning education agencies and groups) trained all the teachers how to use technology. The students said that their teachers were very fearful of the dangers of Internet use in particular and concerned about their own liability. The perception of the students is that their teachers were therefore making conscious, deliberate decisions to use technology and in particular providing Internet access less than what they had done previously.
This is not that teachers don’t have technology skills. This is a deliberate stance taken by teachers who LEARN about technology, but are so confused, scared, or disempowered that their practice retreats to use LESS technology.
Professional development that doesn’t empower teachers is no solution at all.
Sylvia
PS Registration is still open for the 2009 Student Speak Up until Dec 23 – share your voice!
via PBS Teachers | PBS Teachers LIVE! Webinars.
December 8, 2009, 8-9PM ET : Education in the Digital Age: a tour of FRONTLINE’s Digital Nation
FRONTLINE producers have learned a lot during a year-long, multi-platform project exploring the impact of the Web and digital media on life in the 21st century. PBS Teachers invites anyone interested in teaching about and with digital technology to join this FREE webinar touring FRONTLINE’s Digital Nation website.
The Digital Nation website will include online video reports on how the Internet and technology are changing cultures, reshaping workplaces and creating new approaches to the way we solve problems. Issues to be examined include the Web’s impact on education, how social media has changed the way individuals interact, and Internet safety and privacy. Central to the site will be a mosaic of user-generated content designed to let visitors participate in the documentary process. The site also will feature a producers’ blog, embeddable video and other sharable content, and a schedule of live online events with expert guests.
More information and registration.
Posted with permission from The Institute for Learning Centered Education – Don Mesibov
If you must lecture, please don’t do it early in the lesson.
Most teachers begin a lesson with a launcher, anticipatory set, ice breaker, bell ringer or an exploratory activity (which we recommend). Each of these often motivates students to think something good might happen during class; some of the students actually begin to look forward to what might come next.
Unfortunately, just as students are beginning to think they might not mind being in class, the teacher too often launches into a lecture and all momentum is lost. It’s like the dead scene in a play that interrupts the flow of excitement generated earlier.
Why do teachers lecture early in a lesson? It’s because we have new information we want our students to learn and we want to start by telling them what we want them to know. But it isn’t effective. If the content is completely new to students it is hard to follow the words of a speaker. It is like trying to learn the rules and procedures of baseball when you’ve had no previous knowledge that such a game existed. If you want to teach someone baseball, hand them a glove and have a catch. Put a bat in their hands and pitch to them. Then you can start to explain how the game is played – after, not before, you have actively engaged them.
I’ve sat in the back of the room as teachers have tried to explain to students what they want them to learn. I’ve noticed the faces of the disinterested students. They have no hooks to hang their thoughts on – no context for understanding what the teacher is saying. Sometimes what the teacher says early in the lesson would be more effective if said near the end when the students have been engaged with the new information. The lecture might be more effective as a summary. Once you’ve tried hitting a ball with a bat for fifteen minutes, a mini-lecture on how to stand and how to hold the bat has much more meaning.
Here are some examples of how to engage students with new information BEFORE beginning your explanations.
You can probably come up with more and better examples. My only point is that after you grab the students’ attention with a good opening, don’t blow it by losing the momentum with a lecture that the students probably won’t understand anyway.
Please know that your work in the field of education is as meaningful to our society as anything anyone can possibly do. Thank you for caring about the future of our children!!!!
Don Mesibov October 2009
———–
Copyright (c) 2009, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All rights reserved.
The Institute is currently registering teams for the 2010 summer constructivist conference, July 19-23, at St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teachers are using increasingly in the classroom. More information at The Institute for Learning Centered Education.
If you are located in the Seattle area and want to spend a day learning about creativity, constructivism, and technology, be sure to check out The Pacific Northwest Constructivist Celebration.
Pacific Northwest Constructivist Celebration
Saturday May 16, 2009
Puget Sound ESD (Renton, WA – Seattle area)
Participants will enjoy the day’s activities, complimentary creativity software and a hearty lunch all for just $55. This event is a joint effort between the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the Northwest Council for Computer Education (NCCE), and the Constructivist Consortium.
Dr. Dennis Harper, founder of Generation YES will be there too!
Go to www.constructivistconsortium.org for more information and to register. There are only a few seats left so don’t delay!
Sylvia
NASA Ames Education and the Lewis Center for Educational Research, is conducting a special workshop for up to 25 science and math teachers from local schools February 26 – 28, 2009 at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA.
This 3-day training program provides teachers with all the necessary tools to remotely access and control the Lewis Center’s, 34 meter, Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) from their classrooms. The GAVRT program involves American students throughout the world in real science using a hands-on, standard-based curriculum that helps middle and high
schoolers reach for the stars. Students participating in the GAVRT program will assist NASA by monitoring the progress of the LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) during its mission to the moon in 2009.
The GAVRT training is normally $600 per teacher. However, due to a unique LCROSS scholarship opportunity, this workshop is currently FREE to 25 teachers! And, these 32 hours of professional development are recognized for state, district, and NCLB requirements. If you are teaching science or math in your classroom, you are qualified to apply for this unique program.
The training will include a special NASA Ames tour at that is not normally open to the public. Andrew Chakin, world-renown author of Man on the Moon – the basis of Tom Hanks’ miniseries From the Earth to the Moon will meet with the teachers to share his experience inspiring students.
For more information about the LCROSS Mission and the Lewis Center and GAVRT program visit : http://www.lewiscenter.org/gavrt and http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/
Applications are now being accepted for this exciting program. To enroll, immediately contact: Barbara Patterson at NASA Ames Research Center: barbara.e.patterson [at] nasa.gov 650-604-0494
Yesterday I was reading a handout by Dr. Stephen Krashen called 88 Generalizations about Free Voluntary Reading. It summarizes the research and benefits to literacy of Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), also called Free Voluntary Reading (FVR). You give kids books, and time to read them, and they read.
Dr. Krashen is an activist for giving students more access to books, more time to read, and less coercion to do so. His credentials are impressive: professor emeritus at USC, a linguist and expert on literacy, language acquisition and reading. He’s in the International Reading Association’s Reading Hall of Fame.
I have no trouble admitting that his articulate positions and research resonate with me.
It struck me as I looked at this list that it’s a lot like what I believe about children and computers: that student choice, plus time for unstructured access to lots of different computing experiences is crucial to developing literacy and fluency with computers. My vision includes a teacher or mentor modeling passion, collaboration, interest in the subject, and offering experiences that challenge students without coercion, tricks, or rankings. If I had to come up with a catchy acronym, I’d call it Sustained Tinkering Time (STT).
Picking through his generalizations about reading, it occurred to me that some of them are very applicable to students using computers, and some seemed not to translate too well at all.
Hallmarks of Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) (adapted by me from Krashen’s list)
So, looking at this list, there are some things that seem really relevant to the kind of computer fluency I would like all students to have. Wouldn’t it be great if students had:
I’ve skipped over some hard questions…
But not everything seems to perfectly translate. In FVR, the students are allowed to read pretty much anything (within reason). But for technology, I certainly would hope that aimless surfing or watching random YouTube videos isn’t what happens.
Is this being hypocritical? Is this just a way for me to pass judgement on applications that I like and think are “important” vs. ones I deem trivial and a waste of time? If I say, “no games” – am I just doing the same thing as a teacher demanding that kids only read “good” books for SSR, and thereby undermining the process?
I know in my head what I’d like to see – mindful interaction with the computer, making good things, focused collaboration, working on projects. Something that rises above drill and practice, clicking on stuff, or just watching. But what about chatting? Looking at email? What about playing “good” games? If you want technology literacy, does it matter if one student becomes fluent in making Wordles and another learns to program?
What’s the verb?
What is it that the student is doing that’s equivalent to reading? If you show language literacy by reading and writing, you show technology literacy by … what? Computing? Touching a mouse? Technologizing?
There’s something I’m trying to capture here that goes beyond the mere physical presence of a child sitting in front of a digital device. I really think this elusive concept is at the heart of what many have been struggling with as we all try to define “technology literacy.” Especially if we try to make the definition more than a checklist of skills.
You can smell collaboration in the air (especially in middle school)
There are other pieces of Sustained Silent Reading that really don’t work for technology, like the “silent” part. Sustained Silent Computing sounds terrifying. When I think about the kind of collaborative technology experience I’d hope to see, the kind I’ve seen in too few classrooms, it’s anything but silent. It’s purposeful, joyful noise, and you can tell the difference. But how do you articulate that?
It’s simply not good enough to say, “I know it when I see it.” But I’m not sure what to call it without tying myself up in semantic knots.
Pinning these experiences down with precise language deadens them like a pithed frog. (I was going to say a pinned butterfly, but when you can use pithed frog in a sentence, I believe it’s mandatory.)
What do you believe about learning?
And even if we got the words right, would it actually result in improved technology literacy? Would the lack of coercion raise the general level of technology literacy or lower it? In SSR, if one student is reading a comic book and another a chapter book, do they influence each other?
And is that part of the teacher’s job – to offer other activities that generate interest in more complex work? To model curiosity and trying new things? To facilitate collaboration and challenge students?
Without technology literacy skill tests, lessons on tools, and assigned projects, will students take more risks and try more complex things? Or will they do the least amount possible? I think this boils down to what you believe about learning – is it natural or does it have to be coerced.
Depth, not breadth
If you’ve stuck with me this long, do you see the technology corollaries to:
Yes, you…
So I’m throwing this out there to you, the dozens of folks who read this blog. Does looking at FVR help with defining technology literacy?
What would Sustained Tinkering Time look like to you?
So many questions…
Sylvia
The Parent-Teacher Talk Gains a New Participant – NYTimes.com.
Today’s New York Times features an article about student participation in teacher-parent conferences. Good news: good facts and stories woven into a compelling article that supports student empowerment by including them in their own education. Bad news: it’s not new, and leaves out the mountains of research and practice about student conferences.
But, Google to the rescue! Here’s a great collection of resources from Education World (and hurray, recently updated) about how to plan and implement successful parent-student-teacher conferences.
Sylvia
Bad Behavior has blocked 2110 access attempts in the last 7 days.