Multi-faceted Refractions

At the beginning of the year, we often start the year with a prompt for thinking. This year, in our high school, we were asked what we going to do to share our passion and excitement for the year. Here is my reply:

One of the things that I try to do is to twist it back onto the students. I will share a basic framework of where I would like to see the course go, but more importantly, I want to see what has motivated students to sign for my course. In the end, I want them to be able to tell me what they hope to learn and get from the class. This helps me in two major ways, one to see where their heads are and what they are passionate about. This helps me structure the course so they not only understand the basic framework and scaffolding which is essential for understanding but to also allow the students to guide their own learning.

Oftentimes this means that I have to learn or be taught by the students to help them reach the goal that they want. This is exciting, as it keeps my course fresh and new, not rote and stale.

Students often struggle with this concept of setting their own course. They have been conditioned to being told what to do and when. They become conditioned in the game of school, determining how much work will be necessary to get the good grade.

I want to teach learners, not students.

5:20 a.m.

The screeching of the alarm announced the “official” end of summer. My wife started to rouse herself out of bed, so she could get to school for the first day of her school’s in-service.

This fall, there are going to be a number of disruptions. First, having moved to a new house, the beginning of school means that we will not only have to establish new routines and habits, but to do so in a foreign place. It will be a rough week

At school, as evidenced by the picture to the right, we are undergoing a major renovation of the space which was occupied by both our high school and administrative offices. Everyone will have to learn new routes, habits and routines. I know that for myself, even what would seem simple, the mailing of a package has become an adventure, as I had to figure which office had the supplies and where I needed to place the package so it would be picked up. The old routines and patterns will be shifting daily.

For the start of school, this is a wonderful opportunity to rethink everything. Take nothing for granted. This will permit us to look at different views. This investigation will be exciting and invigorating.

I am excited about the new year. There are many plans underway that I am excited to share with you over the course of the next few months. I hope you will take the time to keep your eyes open to new possibilities and ways.

Douglas Merrill in his new book, Getting Organized in the Google Era, states in the preface that

In my research, I found that most of the ways we teach math (and other subjects) are poorly designed for how are brains actually work. Dyslexic or not, most of us have trouble learning math (or other subjects) not because we’re stupid or lazy but because we’re simply being taught in the wrong ways.

As a a parent, I can attest to this statement. My daughter does not learn algebra the way I process it. I want to see the problem, sketch, and then manipulate the symbols to construct the solution. She on the other hand, wants to talk through the problem verbally, without writing or sketching. This year, she finally had a teacher who recognized this and showed her ways to process the information using her strength. When factoring, She talks and used a diagram that works for her, for me, it is writing factor trees and arrows and boxes. In the end, both processes work for each of us.

At previous NECC conferences, renamed ISTE this year, I have enjoyed the conversation, but I have felt that it has suffered as it occurs oftentimes in the echo chamber. This year, I am going to do my best to seek out others who are teaching and learning new ways, to seek out new voices, to gain their perspective. I want to find a diversity of ideas and folks. I look forward to the opportunity to share with old friends, but cherish meeting new ones.

Over the past two years, Alex Ragone and arvind grover asked me to become a part of their webcasting team, 21st Century Learning, where we have explored the intersection of learning and technology. As busy and as crazy as life has gotten, I have always cherished the opportunity to connect with these two good friends and a collection of great guests, to discuss a number of interesting topics. Although I am not always as prepared as I could be, I always try to bring a non-New York flavor to the show.

The show has allowed me to connect with a number of great teachers and administrators. For me, this has been some of the best professional development, as my relationships with the various guests have continued after each of the shows. Although I have enjoyed each of the 51 shows that I have been involved with, my personal favorites have been:

1. With Kelly Hines, Meredith Stewart, and Bill Ferriter as the keynotes of the North Carolina Area Independent Schools (NCAIS) Innovate Conference
2. With both Michael Horn and Curtis Johnson, authors of Disrupting Class
3. With Pat Bassett, President of NAIS
4. Disruptive Innovation and the Future of K12 with Scott McLeod
5. Open Course Design with Alec Couros
6. With Wendy Drexler on the Networked Student
7. With Andrew Katz and Ken Hiat on Roxbury Latin’s Social Media Plan
8. With Liz Davis on 1-1 Professional Development
9. With Brad Rathgeber on the Online Girls Academy
10. With David Bill reflecting on TEDxNYED
11. With Jonathan Martin on Building the 21st Century School

There have been conversations with many other great people, Jason Ramsden, Fred Bartels, Demetri Orlando, Sarah Hanawald, Peter Gow, Chris Fitzgerald Walsh amongst others.

In the fall, check back and see what we have in store for you in the upcoming year. Today was the first week without webcasting and I already miss it.

Last week, Lucas Ames wrote a wonderful blog post entitled, “A Class Full of Digital Natives Doesn’t Know They Know Everything..” I agree with Lucas’ assessment that just because high school students have grown up connected doesn’t mean that they can transfer that ability to  use the same tools that they connect socially in ways which will facilitate their learning. I have found the had the same experiences as Lucas, that there are “a significant number of students who had real antipathy toward using technology as a vehicle of assessment. ”

This upcoming year, a large number of the teachers that we have hired are younger teachers, at least from my perspective. Some of these teachers are significantly closer in age to the millennials that they will be teaching than to my generation. Many of them arrive on campus with their iPhones or other smart phones, having used the various Google tools in their previous posts, and many having taken online courses using Moodle or Blackboard. These faculty Facebook and text as their primary ways of communicating. Using email is their badge of being responsible.

However, just because these teachers use technology to connect and communicate with each other, doesn’t mean that they have developed the skills to use the technologies for instruction. Just because they can use Google to search, doesn’t mean that they can teach or guide a student to use Google to do the most effective searches that they can. Just because they can get their gossip from Perez Hilton, doesn’t mean that they know when it would be best to use blogging to reflect, and then communicate with the world. It is the jobs of technology directors, technology integrators, and curriculum specialists to guide and teach the new faculty how to best use these tools for instruction, to meet the goals and objectives that they have for their classes. Similarly to the way that we need to convince students to build a public electronic portfolio, we too need to convince our newer, younger teachers, to create experiences which will showcase their abilities and passions, to develop a teaching portfolio which shows how they are implementing 21st Century teaching into their classrooms.

I am trying to be thoughtful and develop the experiences and awareness of the tools that will enable these new teachers the ability to construct dynamic, fresh experiences for our students.  As Lucas Ames wrote,

Getting (teachers) to think about social media and technology from an academic or “life skills” perspective is something we must consciously teach and not assume they bring to class as digital natives.  (Teachers)  are neither totally apathetic nor uniformly excited about technology.  They are diverse in their outlook and capabilities.  This is no different from any other skill we try to teach in class.

(I have substituted teachers for students, but the thoughts are still the same.)