theatre

what's up with the theatre?

conversations around ed lately keep bringing up theatre. several key advocators for change in ed - happen to have a background in theatre. Sir Ken Robinson for one...

from a book my daughter is reading in school.... Jonathan Kozol writes in his Savage Inequalities, of a teacher (jack forman)  in a "distressed" district (incredibly distressed, unbelievably unreal) that is making headway with students. Jack, Jonathan pens, believes (p. 101) that they should "give (students) every chance to grow beyond their present expectations. He says, "I have strong feelings about getting past the basics. Too many schools are stripping down curriculum to meet the pressure for success on tests that measure only minimal skills. That's why I teach a theater course. Students who don't respond to ordinary classes may surprise us, and surprise themselves, when they are asked to step out on a stage."

seems there's something about theatre we should all be listening to... yes?

___________________________________________________________________

diy u

Anya Kamenetz has put together a brilliant book. i think i have written more in it than she has... so much is resonating.. (meaning i've scribbled stuff in the margins a ton...)

She begins with the history of ed, which is extremely insightful. And is exactly how Steven Devijver told me it should play out.

Then she goes into economics, and even makes you feel the need to shower - for the way ego gets in the way of a better world.

And then... well - dang - now - I've just read pp 80-100 and I'm on fire. thinking I won't sleep tonight. I can't decide if I should finish reading or stop to reflect.

[i'll come back to the history and econ later - because they are so perfect for a foundation - and proof of Anya's (and Steven's) brilliance - but the foundation worked so well on me - i have to log 80-100 first.]

I've called and skyped with Jim Folkestad at CSU (as we're working on the very things of which Anya writes) ... I swear he saved me from pulling my hair out.

This is how learning should be - yes?... You just have to share it - or you'll burst.

So while we're talking - he asks if I've read Rework, which I haven't - yet.., but I've watched Jason Fried's video and blogged about and repeated his comment a hundredfold at least, that "work (school) is where we get the least done."

So it was very fitting that Jim brought him up when pp 80-100 is talking about that very thing for higher ed.

Here's just a listing of my favs for now - just quoting Anya's words unless otherwise stated:

p. 84: She's quoting David Wiley on his realization of an online calculator - how it can be used by so many people, "That seemed to be somewhere between terribly fascinating and the kind of realization that it makes sense to spend the rest of your life working on."
[some linchpin passion/art happening]

p. 85: Students spend $1000 a year on textbooks, on average, and countless faculty hours go to preparing and updating course materials. Can uni's realize the power of Wiley's insight about the Javascript calculator at scale, and use it to cut costs and raise the quality of their offerings?

p. 88: After mentioning Downes and Siemens (and yes Couros on p xii) Anya sites Richard J. Light and the Harvard Grad School of Ed, ..."students' ability to form and participate in small study groups influenced their success in college more than multiple other factors."

and you're saying.. yeah - heard that... but read on.

p. 89: 2tor - (please fill me in if anyone knows more about this... i'm studying up - odd that their site isn't coming easy)

Anya writes: 2tor platform looks a lot like fb and that's by design says Johnson, who draws a distinction between his program and the two standard "learning management systems" in use at most colleges today, Blackboard and Moodle. "Any learning management system can deliver content, deliver exams, and have people red articles, but what you haven't been able to do before is build relationships - which are at least as valuable as the actual course content that you go through."

[which took me right to my recent following and conversing with junto folks - i mean our ning site with dabbleboard, twitterfeed, groups, etc, builds relationships for sure - but my question, does 2tor and/or junto have more... more for less? what would kids, who are network savvy pick? and why? ]

p. 90 - An introduction (for me) to OLI (Open Learning Initiative) at Carnegie Mellon Uni in Pittsburgh, with director Candice Thille

p. 91: Thille explains what happens with 2tor, "it's what might happen in a classroom under ideal circumstances, with a teacher of infinite patience, undivided attention, and inexhaustible resources of examples and hints."  Like our individualization to infinity.

p. 92: And intro to Carol Twigg, founder of NCAT (National Center for Academic Transformation), and Toni Farley at Arizona State who used NCAT's guidance to rewrite a Computer Science program. Key elements of the program: student's ability to go at their own pace, to reflect, and to collab.

p. 94 - [ere's the part i had already written jason fried in the margin, before jim 

mentioned him..]

Anya writes: When faculty can build on existing high-quality course material, rather than reproducing the work from scratch; when systems automate what can be automated - grading tests and quizzes, providing immediate, standardized feedback and practice; and when students can help teach each other as peers, there are significant savings to be had over traditional, butts -in-seats classroom model.

And a very cool comment from Twigg, about her accomplishments, "I'm getting tired of people saying how wonderful I am - I want them to do something along these lines"

p. 95: Prof's are far from obsolete, but it's clear their time and training is being extravagantly wasted drilling students on Spanish pronunciation, repeating 10 yr old lectures, or grading multiple-choice tests. Twigg says of traditional educators: "They really believe that the instructor and student, nose to nose, face to face is the way students learn, and they continue to believe it in spite of all evidence to the contrary."

p. 97: Anya gives a great definition of scaffolding: any kind of teaching aid that works like the training wheels on a bike to help a student until she can master a concept on her own.

p. 98: And her definition of disruptive innovation for higher ed: unbundling the various services college provides

twofold:

open courseware == content

games/networking == socialization

Then she says what's holding us back is assessment and accreditation...

She sites one father: "Why is it that my kid can't take Robotics at Carnegie Mellon, Linear Algebra at MIT, Law at Stanford? And put 130 of those together and make it a degree?"

To that she adds, "Wiley asks. Visionaries say this process, too, can be revolutionized by the right applications of technologies.."

i say let's hop to it..

exactly what we're trying to push in our district with our curriculum committee for kids creating their own courses. and in working with csu courses and pre-teacher training.

related post from @eduinnovation
related history from steven devijver
_____________________________________________

blink

new fav song:

blink by revive

the words - sing a long

revive talking about blink

_______________________________________

dan meyer rocks

TEDxNYED - Dan Meyer - 03/06/10

math text books - you can pass the class without knowing any physics, but just how to decode a text book

5 symptoms you're doing math reasoning wrong in school:

more on his:

impatience with irresolution

visual... which section is the steepest (has 2 good answers)

questions... what does steepness mean

structure...

what matters to you is such an underrepresented question in math ....

he said this... "because of my inexperience... i teach kids that are remedial.."  well ... craziness

what math teachers should do in the classroom:

math makes sense of the world.

math is the vocabulary for your own intuition.

cool that we get to read these comments as well... what a lucky time in which we live..

don't miss it.

don't blink.

___________________________________________________

junto

junto is moving... and it's extremely exciting.

Junto is a concept for a global communications/collaboration platform. It starts with a simple interface, combining video chat with a text box and a twitter backchannel, all streaming in public, real-time. In Venessa's last post she even mentioned pivot.

Venessa Miemis is the inspiration and though she might not admit it... quite the mastermind behind it. Her twitter bio reads: futurist, philosopher, thought architect, metacog. MA candidate in Media Studies at The New School. 

Venessa has not only brought together a great and much needed concept...  conversations that matter, seen clearly in her letter to Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the world wide web, but she is also bringing together brilliantly innovative minds that are able to think and see past buzzwords and glitz to things that matter, and who are also able to make them happen. 

Emily Cunningham, in her post,  Me, We and Junto, cites that in formulating the ideas behind Junto, Vanessa modifies the Chatroulette model asking, Now what if instead of the “roulette” format, with two random stranger in a conversation for no good reason, what if we do this as purposeful dialogues between intelligent people to discuss big ideas? 

#junto is certainly worth  following, better yet - worth jumping in...

_____________________________________________

redefining assessment

Lots of good posts floating around... making me think and reflect... and finally pen some of *our methodology. Like some of you - I do it mostly for the critique.. critique that I need, that my kids need, ...so critique that I crave.

This last year *we have been working on redefining assessment...

*for the most part, the we/our refers to 30 brave students piloting a web class,.. doing some math but also in search of ways to make the time we spend at school matter

We've logged a lot of findings here and consolidated our thinking on redefining success here.

I read a great post by Grant Wiggins on authentic assessment here. 

Some things we've found that we really like:

1. grading per topic 

We especially like the do overs as described by Fisch and Meyer and Hanna applying Dan Meyer's test model. And, the shorter assessments. While we do like these ideas, we haven't used any yet...

2. students grading their own tests. 

This seemed crazy at first. Many students are burnt out on grading their own papers or each other's. Even though I know they know I'm not lazy, I felt the need to convince them I wasn't having them grade their own test to save me time. In fact, the first few times we did it, the entire process took approximately 3 times as long. Despite how difficult it was for all of us... everyone now agrees we much prefer these self-assessments. 

Students grade their test in a colored pen, using a key I have made with each answer labeled with possible points and exemplary answers. I look over them after they've graded them. So far only one was skewed in favor of the student. Most are accurate and a few have been skewed away from the student's favor. We finally have it down, so the scoring part doesn't take any explanation.

One pay-off has been that students find out how close they generally are to nailing a solution. Often when students see their graded test, that's an end in their thinking, since we've taught them so well that it's all about the grade, and they go away feeling stupid. Going through the process of grading their own test keeps their mind open, and learning. Students know they will receive recognition (name added to the key... I know -it's hard to believe that's enough) upon finding errors in my key and upon sharing alternate methods and/or solutions.

Another pay off is the rich discussion we have while we're grading. Students challenging other students about their answers or defending their answers. We've had great discussions about CSAP and ACT and SAT and how to take these tests. For many, we're finally squelching the mystery.

Another pay off is that we're developing better tests. My test writing skills are improving, but mostly because I'm listening to students create better questions while we discuss. Their buy-in has brought more clarity to the whole process.

3. alternate ways to assess

For students with "test anxiety" the biggest help has been their option for a per conference oral assessment. After a test, a student can schedule a one-on-one appointment with me. Then they revise any problems they missed on the test. When we meet, I'm asking them per problem, what they did when they took the test, how they would do the problem different now, and then I have them do some different form of the problem.

Every student to date that has gone through this process has improved their understanding. I'm guessing most of it is because of the timeliness and ability to probe their thinking to a deeper and more personalized level. But I also think part of it is just that they had a chance to redeem themselves before moving on. I think test anxiety has become such a common thing, real or not, because of the high stakes we put on tests, or one test, or grades. We've taught kids that tests are to tell them if they're good or bad. Then the tests themselves are generally trashed, whether literally or not, they aren't very often used to further learning.

I'm still not convinced there exists a summative test. Why would there?

A short while ago, we (12 of these students, 1 admin, a parent and myself) got the opportunity of a private session with James Paul Gee. One thing in particular really resonated with us. Gee explained that when a teacher teaches a topic for say 6 weeks, we find it quite normal to then give a test to see what the students learned. However, when you have a student play a very difficult game, and the student advances to the hardest level, and finishes, it would seem silly to then suggest that student take a test to see how well they learned the game. The fact that they finished is proof of their success. 

He said that some people are working on AP Calc after this manner. That once a student makes it through this "AP Calc game" which includes building a bridge, etc, that would grant them AP Calc credit.

Compentency vs Content.

Gee also pointed out that games don't make you feel stupid, because if they did, you wouldn't buy them and continue playing them. But how many times does a kid go home from school feeling stupid.

We have so much to learn about this, and so much to change. Kids should be craving feedback, to streamline success, not dreading it.

more controversy on project approval....

Say Aimee gets credit in algebra for taking some of her ap human geography group to student 2.0

Say what??

Here's my thinking...

We know kids can get info to a large group of others if a party changes location or if we forgot to tell them to bring $5.

Why don't we let them use those skills when prepping for school and standardized tests. It's silliness that we don't.

Aimee's group currently has 39 members, collaborating on a great study guide for their AP test. What if they go national? Surely students from other districts and other states can add even more insight. Heck, just talking to each other about it and explaining things to each other is helping them learn it.

So - why can't that act count for credit in math class. Sure, it's not "math" but this process is key to learning how to learn. Problem solving in the purest sense.
I'm betting they'll use this networking when it comes time for their AP Calc prep.
And better yet..what if they started using it daily. What if they started using their favorite tools and sites to teach each other...
Hey - off your phone... wait... what?...that looks like math... carry on.. :)

What if success is determined by how well your network is doing...? Wouldn't that be validation that you had success?

Ok, one more... we also think that for the big formal tests,... (summative) ... that students should get 1-2 phone a friend opportunities. We think that resembles real life more (even dr's do it).. and who of us can remember a time - that if we could have gotten one little question answered, the entire test would have looked completely different.

k - enough for now..

__________________________________________________

Jan Chipchase

Ted Talk by Jan, who is a principal researcher for Nokia. He travels around the world and inside our pockets in search of behavioral patterns that will inform the design of products we don't even know w

on our mobile phones

connections and consequences:

3 bill by the end of this year will have cell phones (and this talk was in 2007)

when you walk out the door, what do you take with you, and of the things you take, what do you use the most.

what do you carry:  (3 most important across cultures)

1. keys

2. money

3. mobile phone

why - for survival

1. keys - access to shelter and warmth and transport

2. money - to buy food and sustanence

3. cell - recovery tool

cells can transcend space and time

2004 - almost 800 mill who can't read and write worldwide

what does it mean when people's identities are mobile

the lifestrong bracelets personifies these connections..

what's it going to be like when everyone on the planet is connected... everyone can transcend space and time

four things:

1. immediacy of ideas - speed of which they go around, if you want a big idea, you need to embrace everyone on the planet

2. immediacy of objects - as the functionality becomes greater and the object becomes smaller,

3. as long as it meets base needs - people on the street will take it an innovate it

 ________________________________________

more thoughts after reading Ben Wilkoff's post on what do we have time for:

i thought the whole focus (from Jan's talk above) of what do we use as our value-meter was a good one. do our words of what we value match up with what we actually do.

in your mind, no way would you love the guitar and not play it.

i think this awareness... looking at trends can be helpful with virtual tools and real life apps. the real life like your guitar story.. and even more important, time spent with people that matter. the google-meter i have on my ning site, has you google yourself and go five pages back... if those five pages aren't filled with at least 90% (can't remember exact %) of what you say you're about... you're not digitally distinct.

it's a zoom out method... like get pivot shows...
we get so focused on busyness or day to day.. but are we doing the right things? the things we want to be doing?..

i might have already shared this with you, but jason fried (wrote rework) says that work is where we get the least done. i'm thinking - a lot of times - life is where we get the least done - in comparison to what we really want to get done, or be about.

my son's fav song - blink - by revive, tells me we should change this up.

____________________________________________________________________

Roger McGough

wow... take a listen via Mike Harrison, ..

a stop motion film of chalk writing and drawing on a black board of a poem by Roger McGough, My First Day At School.

amazing imagery... captures so many raw emotions and unfortunate games we play in school.

_____________________________________________________

professional development

interesting report on teacher development via the plpnetwork:

a snippet here:

One of the reasons opportunities for teacher development are superior in other nations is that teachers in those countries don’t spend all of their hours in the classroom. U.S. teachers average far more net teaching time in direct contact with students (1,080 hours per year) than any other OECD nation. By comparison, the OECD average is only 803 hours per year for primary schools and 664 hours per year for upper secondary schools. U.S. teachers spend about 80 percent of their total working time engaged in classroom instruction, as compared to about 60 percent for these other nations’ teachers, who thus have much more time to plan and learn together, and to develop high-quality curriculum and instruction.

In most countries, about 15 to 20 hours per week is spent on tasks related to teaching, such as preparing lessons, meeting with students and parents, and working with colleagues. By contrast, U.S. teachers generally have from 3 to 5 hours a week for lesson planning, which is done independently.

__________________________________________________________ 

Stefana Broadbent

how the internet enables intimacy

Scott McLeod captures some great quotes from Stefana's talk in his post. 

__________________________________________________

don't do it ning

gosh ning... keep us.. don't lose us.

Steve Hargadon working on it.

Lucy Gray working on it.

Alec Couros working on it.

my guys that will be sad...

talk.ed

new school

student 2.0

______________________________

let's redefine school

i agree with @gcouros

every day of school should feel like this:

4 years... we can make it happen...

________________________________________________________________

iste bootcamp on aups

AUP's with Larry Anderson live

slides will be here

bootcamp ning

how to build policy that is laced to vision

people want to be led

what is vision:  ability to see

you can't call yourself a visionary, others can call you that , but you can't

visionary has to have imagination

act of anticipating

can see things others can't see

can see them and communicate them clearly - so the imagination comes to life

visionaries are about people

they have an energy

if you have vision it has to be cast...

current tv mission statement:

• Building for a new generation!
• Building the skills to achieve each student's academic/career goals
• Building the skills to contribute to society
• Building an understanding of cultural diversity
• Building self-pride and self-confidence
• Building a belief that learning is a life-long endeavor 

 
 

1st Paragraph of our Vision: Arapahoe High School commits itself to continued excellence in education while utilizing the ever-changing innovations in communication and
technology. While looking to the future, we also honor our unique and long-held relationship with the Arapaho Tribal Nation by appreciating their
values of respect and dignity. Through positive interpersonal relationships, relevant learning and rigorous curriculum, Arapahoe will continue to
produce responsible and empowered participants who make meaningful contributions in the greater society.

---------------------karl

do we have a vision statement? needs to not be filled with mush

do we have a tech policy?

who actually writes the policy

Moderator (Michelle Bourgeois): @kim Probably. But hopefully a good policy is not tool specific, but behavior specific

is it discrete? stands on its own - or integrated w/other policies

what is policy

Bud Hunt: I hope that it's vision realized.  The creative constraints of an organization.

want to insure that the policy is relevant and doesn't conflict w/existing laws, direct, for people, kind

policies should be visionary no reactive

texas assoc of policies

canada's digital citizenship continuum is a good resource 

acceptable use policy vs responsible use policy

responsible much better

a father wanting a boy dating his daughter... does he want responsible or acceptable

what is our aup?

bad aup

just  a form, can't be enforced

minot - says we don't have a pencil or textbook policy - so we're having no policy..

ctap vision 4 -

Bud Hunt: @Karl - We're skipping opt-out.  We already have a curriculum objection process.  Why should technology be different?

tinker vs demoines

reasonably prudent person principal

policy checklist

handschooling

check out this intriguing site by Judy Breck on cells

_____________________________________

forward movement

I must say... I truly admire the progress Vanmeter is making.

Especially that they are doing it with such grace. It is a joy each time a see a tweet from one of them, and it's got the #vanmeter hashtag, their super's twitter name @johnccarver, their highschool principal's twitter name @derondurflinger, and their amazing librarian's twitter name @shannonmmiller. It's like watching the Walton's (meaning - they know how important relationships are) move toward a better world. How could you not want to follow?

So.. huge thank you to them for modeling something we all need.

I know there are other schools and other districts doing cool things much like Vanmeter.

I would like to encourage everyone to spread the love even more, involve more of us, especially if you currently have the means with tools and web access and time given in the school day.

Three things in particular:

1. Steve Hargadon, Jenny Luca, and Jackie Gerstein put together a Ning called Student 2.0, hoping that it would populate with students that want and need to drive their own learning.

2. Noble Kelly and Sharon Peters head up Education Beyond Borders and are hoping to expand that outreach with a Ning site called New School, again with hopes that it would populate with students that want to drive their own global outreach and learning.

3. I think we all agree that what the future is looking for is indispensable citizens that are not driven by a paycheck, but by passion. School will work best if that is a place where those passions/talents/arts can be recognized, facilitated, optimized. Christian Long has launched a project that is perfect for finding or refining a student's passion. It would be great if we populated his project, or started similar ones of our own, with Ted talks, Tedxteen talks, BIF talks, BIF conversations.

We are fortunate to get to start a district wide Innovation Lab next year. Part one of the lab allows students to create their own course. Three courses we already know we will be taking on are the three above.

The other three parts are about something else Vanmeter, and many others, are doing so nicely, helping students to become tech interns.

Making school real life.

Imagine..

__________________________________________________________