Tag: constructivism

Posted on

New – Technology literacy whitepaper

Download PDFToday we are happy to announce the release of a new whitepaper written by Jonathan D. Becker, J.D., Ph.D. Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University, with Cherise A. Hodge, M.Ed. and Mary W. Sepelyak, M.Ed. Dr. Becker is an expert researcher in achievement and equity effects of educational technology and curriculum development.

Assessing Technology Literacy: The Case for an Authentic, Project-Based Learning Approach (PDF)

This whitepaper takes a comprehensive look at the research, policies, and practices of technology literacy in K-12 settings in the United States. It builds a research-based case for the central importance of “doing” as part of technology literacy, meaning more than just being able to answer canned questions on a test. It also explores the current approaches to develop meaningful assessment of student technology literacy at a national, state, and local level.

Where “doing” is central to students gaining technological literacy, traditional assessments will not work; technological literacy must be assessed in ways that are more authentic.

Building on this definition, the whitepaper connects project-based learning and constructivism, which both hold “doing” as central to learning, as the only authentic way to assess technology literacy.

True project-based assessment is the only way to properly assess technological literacy.

Finally, it examines our TechYES Student Technology Literacy Certification program in this light.

A review of existing technology literacy models and assessment shows that the TechYES technology certification program, developed and implemented by the Generation YES Corporation using research-based practices, is designed to provide educators a way to allow students to participate in authentic, project-based learning activities that reflect essential digital literacies. The TechYES program includes an excellent, authentic, project-based method for assessing student technology literacy and helps state and local education agencies satisfy the Title II, Part D expectations for technology literacy by the eighth grade.

This whitepaper can be linked to from our Generation YES Free Resources page, or downloaded as a PDF from this link.

Sylvia

PS – Share this important research with your PLN!

Posted on

Tinkering Towards Educon

I’ll be heading to Philadelphia later this month for the Educon conference. This is a terrific small conference held at the Science Leadership Academy about education and change. Educon is famous for having “conversations” not “presentations.” This means that the wisdom of the crowd gets shared as we explore one topic in depth.

This year I’m leading a conversation on Tinkering Towards Technology Fluency

Conversation Description: Tinkering is a time-honored educational practice, focusing on a learner exploring a subject or problem without clear goals or time constraints, using objects or tools at hand, driven by passion and curiosity. Seymour Papert used the word, “bricolage” to describe a way to solve problems by trying things out, testing, playing, and trying again. This stands in direct contract to the way we teach students to use analytical methods (such as the scientific method) to solve problems. Current digital tools would seem to support this method of learning, with the rapid ability to build first drafts and easy to use editing tools. When mistakes and prototypes were expensive and time consuming, it certainly made sense to carefully plan your attack on a problem. However, this is no longer the case. In industry, the methodology of production planning has been revolutionized by rapid design tools. Accepted practices of design and planning have completely changed over the past 25 years, with linear “waterfall” planning completely replaced by new “spiral” design methodologies, especially in the design of digital products.

Beginning questions for the conversation are:  How can tinkering influence our understanding of technology literacy as a set of skills to be mastered? How might this influence classroom practice when teaching analytical problem solving in any subject? How can tinkering fit in today’s structured classroom environment? How does a teacher maintain a schedule and series of learning objectives that result in learning, not just fooling around? Is anything a student does tinkering? What role does judgement and content knowledge play in tinkering?

If you are considering attending Educon, I hope you join the conversation!

Related posts:

Sylvia

Posted on

Constructing Modern Knowledge 2010

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.

CMK 2010 info

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:

Posted on

Constructivism in practice – making lectures work

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.

  • BILL OF RIGHTS: Don’t explain or describe them. Distribute a one page summary of the Bill of Rights, pair the students and ask each pair to prioritize them in order of importance. Then ask each pair to justify its prioritization. There is no right or wrong and it doesn’t matter how each pair prioritizes. What is important is that the students have been challenged to think about each article and what it means.
  • TOO, TO, AND TWO: Pair or group students and ask them to design an ad for their favorite TV show or DVD, or food using each of these words correctly at least once.
  • MIXTURES AND SOLUTIONS: Give students different substances to mix and ask them to share conclusions they reach based on the results.
  • PERCENTAGES: Ask students, in pairs or groups, to share their perceptions of what’s good and what’s bad about buying with credit cards. This can lead to a lesson on percentages that students perceive as relevant when you ask them to assess whether the purchase of a sale item, using a credit card, will actually save money when the interest payments are taken into account.

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.

Posted on

Constructing Modern Knowledge 2009

Wow, I’ve had this post in draft mode for way too long and it’s getting way too long as a result! This may turn out to be a couple of posts.

Constructing Modern Knowledge 2009 was July 13-16 in Manchester, NH. This is the second year for this event, and my second year being on the faculty.

First of all, the event once again exceeded my expectations, both in content and the attendees. The things that happened there and the conversations I’ve had fueled a lot of new thinking on my own part. There were also some things that I wished we’d had more time for.

At CMK, there are few presentations, so that the bulk of the time is spent working on projects and thinking about how these kinds of project experiences, especially using computers, translate back to the classroom. But two presentations stood out to me and invaded my thinking throughout the event and beyond.

Deborah MeierDeborah Meier was one. She was warm and grandmotherly, smart, and her presentation was amazing. And when I say presentation, it wasn’t a powerpoint. It was just her, standing in front of us recounting her own journey to becoming a progressive educator with insightful, interesting anecdotes that perfectly illustrated her points. Her appeal for a community-based approach to education and its connection to building our democracy was compelling and reinforced much of my work in regards to student voice.

I was glad that I re-read her book, The Power of Their Ideas on the plane ride to Manchester. It reminded me of how subtle ideas can be so powerful when executed with passion and care. Her talk reinforced how much work it takes over long periods of time to make things you care about sustain and grow.

Lela Gandini was the other speaker that brought it home for me. Dr. Gandini is the United States liaison for the dissemination of the Reggio Emilia approach, a revolutionary learner-centered approach pioneered in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Her presentation was complemented by amazing visuals of the Reggio schools and the work of children. The schools are constructed with deliberate care to provide space, light, and to support a creative learning environment. The attention to detail and the constant working towards making it better was fascinating.

Reggio is also built on having teachers carefully listen to children, document and discuss their work, and take direction from the interests of children to build a rich, layered learning experience. There is a lot of attention paid to the integration of art using rich materials to draw out children and help develop the child’s sense of self, and their place in the community and the world.

The juxtaposition of Meier’s focus on student voice as a part of creating a stronger democracy and the Reggio focus on listening carefully to student ideas to guide learning opened my eyes once again. They both were saying similar things, yet in subtly different ways. There were so many factors that go into creating these kinds of learning communities, not the least of which is the importance of engaging adults who are willing to be open to learning themselves and sublimating their own desire to quickly impart knowledge into a desire to guide children as part of a life-long learning journey.

Next post will be more about the attendees and the awesome project work we all did during the week. You may have also noticed that there seemed to be very little in this post to do with technology. I’ll talk about that later too. For now, though, just a few resources about these two remarkable women and “the power of their ideas.”

An online bookstore collection (by Gary Stager,) including books by Deborah Meier and books about Reggio Emilia.

More to come…

Sylvia

Posted on

Only a few seats left for Northwest Constructivist Celebration

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

Posted on

Constructing Modern Math/Science Knowledge 2009

Ever question why technology seems to have gone missing in so many math and science classrooms? What happened to the “compute” in computing? Wondering what STEM really looks like?

Yes, technology, math, and science can be friends!

Constructing Modern Knowledge is organizing a one-of-a-kind educational event for January 22, 2009 at Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy. Constructing Modern Math/Science Knowledge is a minds-on institute for K-12 teachers, administrators and technology coordinators looking for practical and inspirational ways to use computers to enhance S.T.E.M. learning. Constructing Modern Math/Science Knowledge is a pre-conference event for Educon 2.1, an innovative conference and conversation about the future of education.

The presenters represent high-tech pioneers and seasoned veterans at the forefront of innovation in math, science and computing. Read more about them here.

Come to Constructing Modern Math/Science Knowledge and stay for Educon 2.1!

  • Early-bird registration (before December 15) – $100
  • Regular registration – $130

You may register for both Constructing Modern Math/Science Knowledge and Educon 2.1 with one click.

Sylvia

Posted on

Creativity vs. creating

A really big craneThere is a vast difference between being creative and creating something.

  • You can write a creative report about bridge building, or design a bridge that holds weight.
  • You can make a creative video about careers in programming, or write a computer program.
  • You can build a creative website with links to sites about solar heating, or construct a working model of a solar panel.
  • You can blog creatively about saving the environment, or you can start a movement to do it.

Building a real bridge or writing a computer program or constructing a solar panel or committing time to a cause is constructing something real. It is a different educational experience than reporting about something. Both are valuable learning experiences. Both should be present in a well-rounded education.

However, when we talk about Web 2.0, the focus is often on information gathering, sharing and presenting. This short-sighted focus on information and reporting misses the most crucial part of learning — constructing. It is an incomplete picture of what we want students to learn and be able to do.

Life is not a report.

Sylvia