Category: education reform

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Free access – Educational Leadership: Working with Tech-Savvy Kids

Working with Tech-Savvy Kids article in Educational Leadership

ASCD’s magazine Educational Leadership has opened up our article Working with Tech-Savvy Kids for free online access. We really appreciate this!

Today’s students are increasingly savvy about the role technology plays in modern life. Yet schools are not keeping up. Students can be valuable resources in the areas of training and support. Five models have emerged that balance the benefits of service learning and leadership with the needs of schools struggling to integrate technology: students as committee members, students as trainers, students as technical support agents, students as resource developers and communicators, and students as peer mentors and leaders.

The article gives five models of student leadership that can support 21st century learning in schools, with case studies from real schools who use students as leaders, teachers, mentors, and advocates. There is lots more in the article, but here’s a quick “Getting Started” list for student leadership teams focused on technology.

Getting Started

Creating a plan that includes students in school technology decision making and implementation is just the first step. Keep the following in mind:

  • Provide student access to training, hardware, and software as needed.
  • Give students adequate time and attention to help them grow into their new roles. They will not automatically know how to participate in these opportunities. Encourage a student-led culture with real responsibility that increasingly challenges students to step up and prove themselves. Reward proven responsibility with increased trust.
  • Don’t forget your younger students. It’s never too early for authentic learning opportunities, and these students can be surprisingly helpful with concrete, well-defined tasks.
  • Plan for turnover. Continually recruit and train new students. Allow veteran student leaders to mentor new recruits.
  • Look for ways to encourage long-term student involvement. Make student involvement part of a credit-bearing class, which counts toward graduation or service-learning credits. This involvement can also take the form of independent study or an internship.
  • Create an adult advisory position. This person should have a passion for student empowerment. The advisor will monitor participation, recruit and train new members, and facilitate group activities.
  • Be sure to include school administration and staff in planning for any for-credit student tech-support classes or similar courses. School counselors need to know that these classes will have high expectations for students to participate, collaborate, and be independent thinkers and leaders. Create a plan to recruit students and persevere, even if the classes are small to begin with.
  • Don’t mistake the ease with which youth today use technology in their everyday lives for knowing how to use it in education settings. Teach them the appropriate use of technology and its role in enhancing learning.

Working with Tech-Savvy Kids article (Educational Leadership) – Enjoy!

Sylvia

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10 Steps to Smarter Schools

Dennis Littky is co-founder of The Met school in Rhode Island, Big Picture Learning and College Unbound. If you don’t know about these projects, you should!

Here’s a current article of his in the Rhode Island Monthly –  Ten Steps to Smarter Schools

10 Steps . . . for smarter schools
“If you’re not standing on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.” – Dennis Littky, Big Picture Learning

1)  Create individual learning plans.
The basics of reading, writing, math and scientific thinking apply to any discipline, so let’s build lessons around each student’s interests and goals. When students are motivated and engaged, they stick with school.

2)  Involve families.
Parents are a child’s first teacher and know their student best. Schools need to do all they can to get parents involved – and not just when something is wrong. Parents will make it a priority. They just haven’t been asked.

3) Focus on real-world learning.
Memorizing facts is the lowest level of learning, yet it’s what we ask our students to do most . . .

4)  Foster questions, not answers.
Curiosity is a powerful motivator. . .

5)  Evaluate skills.
Answering a, b, c, d, or e on a standardized multiple-choice test doesn’t reflect a student’s ability to put knowledge into action. . .

6)  Use technology wisely.

7)  Support great teachers.
We must work hard to have only the very best teachers in our schools. Teacher training colleges need to get future teachers thinking innovatively about what school should be, not preparing teachers for the schools of yesterday.

8)  Focus on college completion.

9)  Make schools, not districts, accountable.
Teachers, principals, parents and students know their school the best. They should have enough control to design some of the measures  . . .

10)  Do everything at once.
Tweaking around the edges hasn’t created noticeable change or narrowed the achievement gap in our country.  We must reinvent.
I especially like #10 – “Do everything at once.”

Sylvia

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Educon 2.3 – a new kind of education conference

Next weekend in Philadelphia will be the fourth annual Educon conference. I’m happy to say I’ve been to all of them so far, and it’s grown into one of my favorites of the year.

There are several things I love about Educon:

  • It’s small. Capped at 500 people, it’s intimate enough that you get a “sense” of what people are thinking and the shifts occurring in real time.
  • Authenticity gives it voice and shape. Held at the Science Leadership Academy, a public magnet school with a progressive philosophy in the center of Philadelphia, the vibrancy of the school (both from teachers and students) shines through the event.
  • It’s not a trade show. So many educational conferences, even the ones with academic roots, have morphed into what Gary Stager calls “boat shows.” The focus on sales creates a different kind of atmosphere. Educon is about educators thinking out loud together without the carnival barkers.
  • Conversations, not sessions. At most conferences, people always wonder why discussions of new ways to teach and learn are held in old style lecture halls, and the interesting conversations are the ones in the hall. Educon has tried to bring those conversations to the forefront.
  • It’s centered in practice. Being in a school is not just about the building. The teachers and students are full participants in the conference and model collaboration, non-coercive learning and empowerment throughout. You can tell it’s what they do on a regular basis and it raises the bar for everyone.

I’m leading a conversation this year about gaming in education, “If Games are the Answer, What’s the Question?” Games in education are a hot topic these days, with all the usual mix of reality and hype that goes along with that. I definitely have strong opinions (which I’ll share) – but not the whole time. I hope to have a lively discussion where we’ll look at some games and talk about what makes them “good” for learning or not. Ultimately, perhaps we can come to some conclusions about what to look for in games for different subjects and classrooms.

I’d appreciate any input here or on the Educon page for this session about any particular games that people are curious about and want to discuss. I’ll try to have some screen shots prepared since there really won’t be time to download and play a lot of games AND have a discussion.

If you are coming to this session in person or via the live web streaming, please come with a downloaded game to share, or post suggestions here.

Sylvia

Previous posts about Educon

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Learning @ School – Keynote

I’m excited to be heading off to New Zealand next month to keynote the Learning@School 2011 conference in Rotorua (Feb 23-25). It looks like a wonderful conference, with some really interesting themes and strands.

I’ll be talking about student leadership and empowerment – and the way we can structure learning environments to offer those opportunities. Putting students into positions of responsibility for what and how other people learn teaches them that what they do matters, and gives them new insight into how they (and others learn.)

People always say, “you learn so much by teaching” – so why not have students learn AND teach. Combining this with technology, for which students today have a natural instinct and interest,  just makes sense. Students can teach other students, teach teachers, support technology professional development, help with technical set up and support, and much more. It creates natural collaboration opportunities, provides challenges at many levels, and is really useful. Giving students this kind of responsibility creates a win-win situation where students are valued for their expertise and hard work – real, needed work!

I’ll also do a follow up session to talk about the “how tos” of student technology leadership programs, and then another one about games in education.

I also hope to get some time visiting the famous geysers, boiling mud pools and thermal springs of Rotorua!

Sylvia

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Blaming the new new thing for an old old problem

In Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction in the New York Times last month, reporter Matt Richtel opened up a gold mine of frustrated parents, educators and brain researchers all blaming digital devices for distracting youth from their real jobs of getting good grades and doing what they are told. I guess before radio cars TV phones computers no youth ever failed to do their chores or complete their homework. How shortsighted and forgetful are we as a culture?

The obligatory human interest lead-in to the story, Vishal Singh, a soon-to-be high-school senior, is initially portrayed as someone being led down the dark path of destruction by his wanton digital ways. He plays computer games for 10 hours a week (OMG,) hasn’t read an assigned book, and he has a Facebook account that sometimes he updates at 2AM. This is obviously a life going down the drain.

In the modern day equivalent of “your face might freeze that way,” the article quotes brain researchers who claim that young brains are being permanently harmed by multi-tasking.

The same article that claims that youth can’t pay attention to anything because of all the stimulation also portrays young Vishal Singh as someone deeply involved in digital film-making and storytelling. In fact, he gets A’s in those subjects and is pursuing it for college and career. He’s also the on-call tech support and web designer for his family.

So which is it people, computers cause your brain to decay or not? Perhaps it only causes brain rot in things that are of no interest to you? I hardly think it’s the computer that is causing good grades and deep learning in subjects of interest, and bad grades in subjects this young man does not care as deeply about. Seriously, this is new? Do I have to find a quote from Plato or Socrates complaining about how youth don’t pay attention nowadays (and probably blaming it on newfangled stone tablets?)

After a few other examples of students who text, play video games or do other horrifying things like get B’s, the article revisits Vishal. He is editing video for a school project, meticulously crafting a few seconds to convey the precise feeling and tone that he wants. He doesn’t check Facebook, he doesn’t get distracted  – amazingly enough, his brain seems to function just fine. He is neglecting his other homework, though, Latin and an economics essay. The article comes to a remarkable conclusion – that the difference is “interactivity”. Sigh.

This is so obviously wrong that it’s almost dumb. It’s not about clicking on stuff, or even brains or computers, it’s about interest and having an amazing tool at your fingertips. The computer is unlocking the world to young people, and it’s a bit more interesting than Latin worksheets. The computer is also the right tool for the student who IS interested in Latin or economics, bringing them together with others of like mind and doing actual work.

Do I believe that youth should be free to do whatever they want with no limits or expectations? No, that’s just a silly exaggeration. I believe that using computers and technology, youth have extraordinary new access to communities of interest, expertise, and choices. And what I would like to see is that people stop blaming computers and vilifying youth just because they have their own unique interests and goals, and use the tools of the day to reach them.

Sylvia

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Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions

“Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions” – a quick Google search didn’t turn up the source for this quote, but I’ve heard it for years. It’s one of those simple yet profound statements that sums up interconnectedness, yet vast difference between teaching and learning. “Managing” these conditions on either side without the core involvement of the teacher or the student is just impossible.

In this new report, Transforming School Conditions, 14 accomplished teachers from urban districts around the country merge their own experience in high-needs schools with the best current education research, to discuss conditions that are are needed for teachers to teach all students effectively. Their recommendations for school policy and practice offer a guide to developing systems of support for meaningful and sustainable school reform.

Their recommendations highlight the need for any reforms in teaching to come with a high degree of involvement of the affected teachers — not to be delivered from the top down, outside in, or by an imaginary superhero. The changes have to come from those “at the coalface,” as they say in Australia, meaning those who are in the trenches doing the real work.

 

Bill Ferriter provides a summary and perspective on this report if you don’t have time to read the whole thing (but you should!)

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The Internet, Youth Deviance and the Problem of Juvenoia

This video is a talk given by Dr. David Finkelhor, is the Director of the Crimes against Children Research Center, Co-Director of the Family Research Laboratory and Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire, entitled “The Internet, Youth Deviance and the Problem of Juvenoia”

Is the internet really an amplifier for youth deviance, bad behavior, and risk? Or is it just the opposite? Are we simply applying age-old paranoia about youth (juvenoia) to the newest technology and coming to all the wrong conclusions? Could the Internet be in fact promoting better, healthier culture, identity exploration with less risk, and increased accountability for personal actions? Dr. David Finkelhor takes on these questions with research, facts, historical perspectives — and connections with the fields of child development, human behavior, and psychology.

This talk is well worth watching – especially if you are dealing with parents or colleagues who take it on face value that the Internet is making children stupid, cheapening culture, and is the onramp to deviant behavior and predators.

The Internet, Youth Deviance and the Problem of Juvenoia on Vimeo on Vimeo

This video provides a lot of food for thought:

  • Why do we label and blame kids for normal behavior?
  • Is a fear OF children masquerading as a fear FOR children?
  • Is the Internet similar to other technologies that caused social changes (like cars, TV, phones, etc.)? Or is it vastly different?
  • Is “stranger danger”, sexting crackdowns, and technophobia really about protecting kids or is it political grandstanding and a way to sell fear-based products?
  • Why do we ignore the many indications of better, healthier, connected, smarter youth and believe all too easily that children today are narcissistic, alienated, and addicted to techno-drivel?

Love your thoughts!

Sylvia

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Buzzword alert. What does formative assessment really mean?

Education Week: Expert Issues Warning on Formative-Assessment Uses.

Education Week has an excellent (and short!) article about how formative assessment is not a well-understood concept. I seem to be hearing the words “formative assessment” with greater frequency, perhaps moving into the “buzzword” category. But what does it really mean?

“Margaret Heritage, the assistant director for professional development at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing, or CRESST, at the University of California, Los Angeles, appeared on a panel here last week to discuss a new paper intended as a reminder of what formative assessment should be.”

“Referring to a body of work that sought to define formative assessment during the past two decades, including the influential 1998 article, “Inside the Black Box,” by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, she said formative assessment is not a series of quizzes or a “more frequent, finer-grained” interim assessment, but a continuous process embedded in adults’ teaching and students’ learning.” (emphasis mine)

Lately, I’ve been hearing summative assessment as if it means “the test at the end” and formative assessment is testing leading up to that. This is clearly not the case. Take a trip around vendor booths at any educational conference and you will see that formative assessment is being sold as mini-quizzes that are supposed to give the teacher “feedback” about how the student is doing so “adjustments” can be made before the final test. This is a terrible corruption of the meaning of formative assessment and strips it of its power.

“Teachers use formative assessment to guide instruction when they clearly define what students should know, periodically gauge their understanding, and give them descriptive feedback—not simply a test score or a grade—to help them reach those goals, Ms. Heritage said. Students engage in the process by understanding how their work must evolve and developing self-assessment and peer-assessment strategies to help them get there, she said.”

Turning formative assessment into more little tests is a deceit aimed at selling more testing products and making them easier to invent, administer and catalog.

To do formative assessment, teachers have to talk to students and look at student work. They have to have a relationship with the student so that the feedback is meaningful and useful. With good professional development and a supportive school culture, teachers can learn to do formative assessment. It doesn’t take more time to do it right.

What takes time is testing that focuses on catching students at what they DON’T know for the purpose of collecting more data points. Those gaps in understanding could have been caught in the context of learning. Missing those teachable moments is a lost opportunity that can’t be regained.

“Ms. Heritage’s comments echo others’ concerns that the meaning of formative assessment has been hijacked as the standards movement has pressed states into large-scale testing systems. The result, Ms. Heritage said, is a “paradigm of measurement” instead of one of learning.”

“A teacher quoted at the end of Ms. Heritage’s paper captures the essence of the paradigm shift Ms. Heritage has in mind.

“I used to do a lot of explaining, but now I do a lot of questioning,” said the teacher. “I used to do a lot of talking, but now I do a lot of listening. I used to think about teaching the curriculum, but now I think about teaching the student.””

Doing real formative assessment is not impossible, and shouldn’t be dismissed as “too difficult” or “too expensive.”

What’s really expensive is to do cheap things that don’t work, waste time, and discourage student/teacher relationships.

Sylvia

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The Future of Education interview – Sylvia Martinez

Last week I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Steve Hargadon for his Future of Education web event series. It was a great conversation (Steve is an amazing interviewer!)

We touched on a wide variety of subjects, including: “myths” of technology integration, student voice, gender issues in technology, technology literacy and of course, education reform.

Link to replay interview (when you click this, it will launch Elluminate and replay the entire event, chat window and all.)

Be sure to check out the upcoming events in “The Future of Education” series – there is something for every interest!

Sylvia

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Math 2.0 interview with Sylvia Martinez

On Wednesday, Oct. 27 2010 I’ll be talking with Ihor Charischak of the weekly Math 2.0 online chat about Engineering, Game Development, and Math Education.

A couple of careers ago I was an electrical engineer and programmer in aerospace, then did game development for consoles and PCs. Some the games were “educational” and some weren’t, but the process of building a game was certainly educational for me! The connections between these subjects might not be obvious, but I think the connective thread is that “real world” math is disconnected from “school” math in many ways. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to talk about all that and some solutions during our hour together.

Ihor and I are old friends, so this gives an opportunity to make some of our private conversations over the years more public.

When: Wed October 27, 2010, 18:30-19:30, US/Pacific (GMT-08:00)*Find your local time zone here.
Participant URL: http://tinyurl.com/math20event
More information: http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/events

Please join us!
Sylvia