Education 5P42 begins

A new class begins in less than an hour! EDUC 5P42. A Masters class at Brock University. I am excited about this class and hope that the students are excited too. I believe that we really are entering a new phase in education that will be fundamentally different from education as we have known it. I believe this because I have met so many educators who are doing fantastic things in their classroom.

So what's wrong with education now? Just today  CEA (Canadian Education Association) released information about an international study that reported that Canada is SECOND in the world after Finland in education and skills. We are doing well. But CEA also did a study on student engagement that shows that students do not feel engaged in school. The older they are, the less engaged they feel. Another CEA study shows that teachers feel caught in bureaucratic demands and can't teach the way that they aspire to teach.

Something isn't right in 2013. Yet in some places, it is right. It is right in the classrooms of the 21st Century educators that I recently interviewed. (You can meet them too if you follow them on Twitter or read their blogs.)  These teachers are interested in how they can best teach their students to reach their potential. Helping students learn is their personal/ professional accountability measure.  To do this they follow accountability mandates. They begin curriculum design by planning backwards from curriculum expectations. Assessment for and as learning are important to them and always in mind during planning. Most of them use technology to enhance the learning - but emphasize that technology is a useful tool and that pedagogy always comes first.

During this course I may ask you to do some things that are not comfortable to you. There will be times when I what I hope to happen will not happen through my lack of knowledge or skills. But in true 21st Century style I hope that this is classroom offers a culture of learning where effort is valued and making mistakes is an opportunity to learn. Welcome. May we enjoy a learning journey together.

October 3, 2012

Thanks for all of you bearing with an old dog learning new tricks. October 3 lecture should come in two forms. One, as a powerpoint so you can make notes but it does not have live links and also as a web page with live links.  These both should be in Sakai. But I'm wondering how to embed that into this post?  .What is the difference between a link and an embed code ... let's see.

Lecture

No. I don't know how yet. Can you help me? In the 21st Century we need to be collaborative learners. As teachers we need to be able to say "I don't know how." "Can you help me?",  "Can we learn it together?" Or maybe all I need to do is google it. Gone are the days of teacher as expert. It is the era of the new story!

The future of education

Do you wonder what schools of the future look like? This 27 minute TED talk gives a good picture of the future.

Welcome to the world of critical literacy

Welcome to 4P05. May this be a real learning journey together. If you are like me you will make many mistakes and/or feel frustrated, but you will learn too. In the 21st Century we need to be teaching each other. Sometimes that means undoing previous learning and relearning. It means struggling to see new meanings. It may feel hard at times - the readings may seem difficult. The point is to see in new ways...

Hopefully the Twitter project will work for you. To join, go to Twitter.  Begin by following me. You can follow each other. And you can look up and follow anyone of professional interest. Try Henry Giroux, bell hooks or critical literacy, for example. Check the links in the blogs you read. If something is good,  post it for all to read. Use the hashtag #4P05 on your posting. You can also go to #4P05 and see what we find. Each week we will have a Twitter conversation in class to determine good readings for next classes.

You will also need a Gmail account in order to do our collaborative group reflections.

Good luck. May it be a fruitful journey for all of us.

Susan

Collaborative Reflective writing with a digital twist.

With the ISP MEd. program, I am revisiting the Reflective Practitioner course. It takes me back to the first time teaching it - also in the Spring term. That time I had assigned a culminating task that involved action research. Everyone had a question that they were asking in their own setting and they had to follow through on the question with action research. But by midterm there seemed to be no end in sight. The action research projects seemed to be "on hold" at best - or downright failures in the worst case scenarios. These students were anxious - too anxious it seemed to do reflective work. I got a horrible rash all down my legs that indicated how anxious I was... what if no one's research actually turned out?  We worked through to the end, despite the ominous possibility of failure. And somehow - just before the last class - all the pieces came together for everyone. It was like a miracle. It was a perspective transformation.
 What did I learn? That some anxiety is good. Those student produced work beyond anything that they had done before. They were thrilled with their products, even though the process had been so painful. Why? It seemed the projects were so successful was because there was a certain amount of ambiguity in the assignment.  John Dewey (1910) said that you could not really learn anything new without uncertainty.
But how much uncertainty is too much?  Consider Csikszentmihalyi's Flow theory . We need the proper balance of both comfort and challenge with a task. Then we can be in flow, be in the moment, and presumably do our best work. The path with heart.  Follow your bliss (Note this may not be a reliable site !).
 But, I was violating this comfort/challenge rule as learners were tossed into the unknown without a life jacket to help them stay afloat. Now I am asking the ISPs to take a similar journey. They are to write a collaborative paper on google.docs with digital links in it. They will need to navigate the technology. At the same time I want them to co-construct the vision of 21st Century schools in China. There will be many demons and dragons...and they will need to slay the dragon in order to complete the task. What should schooling look like? I like Edutopia as a site where we can see what works in education. There are articles and UTubes available. I also like project-based learning as described by the Buck Institute. You can go and look at schools such as High Tech High. Here you can see an innovative 21st Century School in action. Check out the student portfolios to see a Rich Culminating Assessment Task. And if you look at Calgary Science School, you can see a whole school program that exemplifies 21st Century learning.
I hope this blog gives you a sense of how to connect your experiences with "theory" that is derived from digital forms of text. This is the type of thing that I expect your group to do as you collaboratively form a vision of education.  The only problem may be that my links don't work consistently as I used 2 different methods to link. And the only way that I can think to find out is to  publish the blog. Here's hoping. Be warned that this way of knowing involves playing, exploring, and experimenting until you find what works. Good luck.

Thinking about my thinking: A metacognitive reflection for 4P02 and 4P06.

As the two assessment courses wind down I am reflecting on what I had hoped would happen in the courses. I made certain decisions as I was drafting the course that affected the original Syllabus. Over time the Syllabus would change somewhat. This change could be alarming. But I am hoping that with an explanation students will understand why I did what I did and the risks and rewards that go with teaching this way.

I am a constructivist at heart. Learning needs to be personally relevant. Students learn best when they learn by doing and learn with others. Relationships are important and that teaching-learning works best when I know a student by name as well as by their work.  I believe in problem-based learning where the student is given an open-ended, complex, ill-structured problem. There is no one right answer. In my long experience, I have found that students really respond to this type of assignment well and demonstrate creativity and knowledge at the same time.  But I also know this type of assignment can  cause anxiety as students seek an answer - especially in a mark-based culture where there is supposed to be a right answer.  Following this formula is a little hard in a large class, but I tried to accomplish all these dimensions in both 4P02 (80 students) and 4P02 (25 students).

I learned some things about my own assumptions. For one, I assume students are self-directed. For example, when one student said in an exit card that he was interested in learning more about the Kahn Academy he also added that he would look it up online. To me, this is the way it is supposed to be. If you are interested you will find out about it yourself - by hook or crook. Second, I assume that students learned the day-by-day assigned content (text and videos) through the collaborative reflections and discussions with your peers rather than chronological lectures of the text.

Third, I expected that 4P02 students could find their way around creating a standards-based disciplinary curriculum with like-minded colleagues. The process was a bit of a discovery process - but to me that is what problem-based learning is all about. It is messy and challenging and rewarding once all the pieces fit. And no one can do it for you in a linear simple way.

 For 4P06 I could not predict what the posters and portfolios will look like. Each of you was in a completely different context and thus each of you will have something completely different to present. Yet in the final outcome, I do expect/want to see depth of thought.

The Collaborative Reflections have always been popular with students and I have assumed that students learn a lot because they have each other to bounce ideas off and to help each other grow. By seeing what others do helps one to think in new ways.

The Guest Speakers were designed to add an element of real-life context to the class. The text was chosen carefully because it is used extensively in schools. As much as possible I tried to provide elements that would make this course relevant to a prospective teacher.

I also put a lot of emphasis on Participation. If I believe that students learn by doing they need to be there to do it. And when they are there they need to be fully there -  not on Facebook or texting friends etc. Of course I can't make anyone participate even if their body is present. So there is a long list of things to do to show that you are there and actively involved. As best Mike and I took observational records of this. We know, for example, when folks are there for the Collaborative Reflections and not there for the lecture. We know when  social network was preferable to the class activity. None of this matters really unless there is a pattern of non-participation that is noticeable over time.

On assessment. This is an assessment course but I continually talk about all the other ingredients of education. Why? In my way of looking at the world, assessment is a part of a system. You need to know what you want to teach in order to assess the right thing. You need to be clear about instructional strategies because assessment is supposed to be embedded into all instructional activities. And, of course, you need to be connected to expectations because you need to be accountable. It is an interconnected system where when one part changes the other parts change too. The BIG IDEA an ENDURING UNDERSTANDING  (I also know that you are supposed to learn the specifics of how to create a good rubric and a good test in your other Teacher Ed assessment course, so I do not cover this.)

My goal has to simulate an assessment for learning (AfL) environment.  Fortunately AfL is deeply grounded in constructivism - which means that my personal heart-felt beliefs are upheld. In this course you have experienced AfL  techniques as exit cards, traffic lights, thumbs-up and thumbs down, popsicle sticks, white boards (brown envelopes), no grades with feedback only, peer assessment, and  higher-order questionning. Some of these have been more successful than others. The brown envelopes were not used that often for 2 reasons: 1. I was not that skilled at embedding them in the lesson and 2. And more importantly, the brown did not work as well as the white envelope would have as I could not see the answers on them very well.  My lesson learned and thanks for getting your envelope laminated.

But AfL is not about a series of techniques. The Spirit of AfL is LEARNING. A key goal of AfL is to give both student and teacher feedback. Hopefully you did see places where you gave us feedback - whether it was from your one-on-one questions or exit cards. We also gave some feedback on the Collaborative Reflections and addressing questions in class. 4P06 helped to recreate the major rubric for this course. 4P02 helped us to refine it slightly for 4P02. You also know that you were a bit uncomfortable with feedback only - although we assured you that if you were at risk of getting a poor mark we would communicate with you personally. The only people with such a risk are those who did fully participate. This anxiety is one of the byproducts of being in a mark culture, such as the one that dominates our lives at university. I'm am still wrestling with how to change this.

The piece that opened my eyes was the teacher feedback aspect. The purpose of this student feedback is so that the teacher can shift the direction of the class to help more people learn. It is intended to be a learner-friendly environment and the shifts in the "original syllabus" are meant to make learning easier. The Aha for me was that in a constructivist AfL learning environment, nothing is carved in stone except the ultimate outcomes expected from the course. Now that I understand this I can explain it better to my next group of students. Change will happen and should happen. The fundamental goals need to stay the same. The KDB.

One last thing re grading the Collaborative Reflection. AfL thinking is that when you do  a series of similar activities you will get better and better at it given the feedback that you get. The traditional way of marking was to average all the "activities" across the year. But AfL thinking says to take the best and most consistent grade. The point, of course, is that once a student has learned a certain skill they should get the benefit of a grade that demonstrates that he or she has learned it. Similarly a student should not have do pages of the same math problem when he or she has shown that they have already acquired that skill. The 4P06 suggestion that the students select the Collaborative Reflections for grading and that the teacher selects one is "smart marking".  As  a teacher you may find yourself mired in feedback. You don't want to mark it all - but you need to find a way that keeps students on their toes while giving them the best shot at getting a good grade (in the summative final grade stage). Smart marking helps you to do this.

Missing in this reflection is an assessment tool of my own making. I leave this up to you in your teacher evaluations. I take a risk by writing this metacognitive reflection  and laying bare my perceived hopes and weaknesses. Perhaps you will only remember the things I did wrong. But perhaps this reflection will offer an example of a self-assessment. It is also a reflection of an experience that you were a part of. Hopefully through this self-assessment, you can see more clearly the Spirit of AfL and continue your own learning through the trial and error of trying new things with the intention of helping students learn...  

Preparing for Classroom Assessment Concurrent Course

We have finished our first class and I believe we are off to a good start. I have read your exit cards and will address the major issues in next class. One question is what does collaborative reflection look like so I am offering you an example with this blog. Most of your issues will be resolved as we get deeper into the readings as they are hard to explain since much of it is "learn by doing". Using the white boards for broad-stroke diagnostic assessment  allowed me to see where you are as a class in your understandings of assessment. The exit cards are also a method of AfL and helped me see where individuals might need for further learning.

The new ways of thinking about assessment emerged during a time of heavy criticism toward standardized tests as the antithesis to real learning. AoL, AfL and AsL really represent an integrated system of assessment/learning that interconnects with instruction and curriculum.   In many jurisdictions this system is known only as AfL. Across Canada AfL is differentiated into the 3 different areas. Most importantly, this "system" is not about a series of techniques (some of which you will learn/experience in this class). Experts talks about implementing the "spirit of AfL". The spirit of AfL refers to the spirit of learning rather than the dominance of the grade (Earl, Volante & Katz, 2011).


The first chapters on TAA revolve around basic principles of assessment. They sound so simple and make common sense - but it is surprisingly hard to implement these ideas. In Cooper's first book (2007), he presents 8 principles and then explains the principle(s) in each chapter. The book is rich with examples that make the learning come alive. By (2010) Cooper has written his high school book. The principles remain the same but he now includes much more context. He recognizes that assessment is taking place in changing times - largely affected by technology.

I am advocating for technological literacy because we really do need to have some of it for 21st Century teaching. One of you pointed out that we always should have a hard copy of what we are doing or have the presentation on a USB stick as well available online. This is because technology is notoriously unreliable at times - and, of course, more so when the user is uncertain of her skills. So when you are to do your technological literacy, please try it out as it turns out the university blocks certain sites.

For one, the university does not support Skype . Skype is a fabulous tool to talk to people all over the world for free (or a small price). You can also see each other at the same time. Recently, Skype added an educational arm that provides for classrooms around the world to connect to other classrooms or experts in the field. Yet, last year we could not connect with educators from Bluewater Board of Education because we could not get through on Skype and the university platform did not work well. Look at  Skype in the classroom to see how a 5th grade class in Missouri connected with a class in Peru for collaborative learning. (Skype is very easy to download.)

Another site that you might find useful is Google. There are a number of fantastic applications that are very useful for education. One of the ones you might find useful is google.docs at google. You will need a gmail account to use this. Google.docs allows you to save your work and have it accessible at all times as long as you have Internet. Its most useful feature is to be able to work collaboratively with others. You might work with your colleagues on a presentation and all may be in your own homes. Many teachers use google.docs to so that students can collaborate with each other (and sometimes it is used so both teacher and parent can follow the child's work).  To do this, one person uploads or creates a document on google.docs and then invites others to work with him or her.

I am currently collaborating with 2 others on a book on assessment and curriculum. One co-author just finished her M.Ed at Brock and the other is a doctoral student here. But they live in Chesley and Bracebridge. We meet on google.docs and can all write at the same time. We also talk on Skype so that we are talking and writing at the same time. We record the sessions on GaageBand'11as the one of us who is a doctoral student is doing her dissertation on collaborative writing in the age of technology. We have interviewed several teachers across Canada using this process where we all participate at once. (We have met our 21st Century educators through  Twitter@susanmdrake).

I hope that you will learn many things in this course and that you will not be afraid to try new things. You will have some successes and some failures but eventually you will have a new repertoire that you are comfortable with. It is two steps forward and one step back if you are a digital immigrant as I am. And chances are you are also a digital immigrant as the first class of digital natives (Tapscott, 2007) just entered university and were born in 1993 Beloit College Mindset List. . That means that the students that you will be teaching grew up in the 21st Century and take digital literacy for granted. Take a look a the Mindset List. Scary?

References

Earl, L. Volante, L. & Katz, S. (2011). Unleashing the promise of Assessment for Learning, Education Canada, 51, 3, http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/unleashing-promise-assessment-learning

Tapscott, D. (2007). Growing up digital. New York: McGraw Hill.  .