Tag: reflection

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Digital Citizenship: A Richer Perspective on #Edtech

Digital empowerment through digital citizenship. This will be the main focus of my upcoming professional development training sessions I’ll have the opportunity to conduct at my old school.

Inspired by the idea of providing differentiation in PD, I decided to run one K-2 session and one 3-5 session. Hopefully that will resolve the issue we encountered during last year’s technology PD when teachers of younger students voiced concern over applying more complex resources to their students.

As I reflect on my personal journey with classroom tech application, the good, the bad, and the ugly come back to mind:

  • Like that time I required every student in my class to create a Prezi for a unit summative assignment. And then we watched them all.
  • Or when I created a diy interactive whiteboard with my students so we could more easily select answers for some gameshow-like software.
  • Or when we decided to collaborate on Google Docs by having everyone revise others’ writing pieces and parts kept getting accidentally deleted. (this was before I was aware of the “See Revision History” feature…  
  • Or when I introduced students to Storybird and they created beautiful digitally illustrated fantasy stories.
  • Or when my students started blogging and sharing their work/commenting on peers, including their quadblogging pals in England and China.

The list goes on and on. But now that I have had time away from the classroom to reflect and research, I’ve gained a couple of key perspectives that I believe will make a big impact on how I use technology with future students:

Digital citizenship is about leveraging our opportunities to enhance connections.

I used to think that when it came to technology, I needed to spend a lot of time teaching my students to use it efficiently and effectively (ie, learning to type, navigating interfaces, etc.).  While these skills are still important, I now realize that it’s more important to spend time opening my students’ eyes to the possibilities available to them today.  I want them to know that they can gather perspectives from around the world, share interests with peers well beyond their classrooms, curate resources that matter to them, and enjoy stories with a global audience. Once they have that spark lit, the other skills will come as they dive in.

Digital citizenship is more about empowerment than caution.

We teach about identity theft, cyberbullying, and password security. And with good reason. But there is much more to the conversation on what it means to be a digital citizen! As George Couros often preaches, we must “find the awesome, create the awesome.” A Twitter exchange with Edna Sackson further illuminated the idea:

 

tweet-between-me-and-edna-sackson

Just as in citizenship in general, the opportunities for good are too overwhelming to wallow in excessive hesitation and fear for what might happen. We are empowered when we are encouraged to see what’s possible, to take ownership over our available resources, and to collaborate positively with other learners throughout the world.

I think one of my favorite aspects of our students developing a strong self-identity as digital citizens is that we can’t fathom what they will do with it. With the exponential nature of tech resources and access, if we give them confidence to explore, create, and contribute, the possibilities are truly boundless.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Will It Help or Hurt to Review Scores With My First Grader? #TeacherMom

“What I’m saying is, when we treat grades and scores and accolades and awards as the purpose of childhood, all in furtherance of some hoped-for admission to a tiny number of colleges or entrance to a small number of careers, that that’s too narrow a definition of success for our kids.” (Julie Lythcott-Haims from the TED Talk below)

This quote comes to mind as I review my 6 year-old’s first academic report from the first month of school. I look at the paper and wonder what I should with it (besides discussing it with my daughter, as per the instructions at the bottom).

Should I high-five her or take her out for a treat because she has high scores in literacy? If we did that, what exactly would we be celebrating? The scores or the literacy? And if we celebrated scores when she has only ever read or written because she loves reading and writing, would she start loving the scores more than the reading and writing?

Should I have her stop writing so many stories after school to make way for more math practice because her scores aren’t quite as high there? If we did that, what exactly would we achieve? Raised math scores? Lowered writing scores? A sense of pressure associated with mathematics?

All these thoughts swirled as I obediently reviewed the report with her, when suddenly, she stopped me and asked, “Why are you telling me all these numbers?”

It made me stop and wonder, why was I? Was I conveying the idea portrayed in educator Edna Sackson’s comic below?

ednasacksoncartoongrades

So far, scores don’t mean anything at all to her. She simply sees herself as a reader, writer, mathematician, scientist, thinker, and artist. Why should I should I get in the way of that by pushing her, when there is already such a strong intrinsic pull toward learning? As Edna also so eloquently shared years ago,

“School is often about push. Push to succeed. Push to get high grades. Push to achieve. Push to fit in. Push to participate. Push to comply. Push to work harder.

But the above might not be the most motivating ways to engage students and promote learning…

Learning is about pull. A strong provocation that awakens curiosity. A powerful central idea that excites interest. Essential questions that draw students into meaningful learning. Learning experiences that encourage wondering, exploring, creating and collaborating. Opportunities to construct meaning and transfer learning to other contexts.”

Don’t get me wrong. I do appreciate the report and I deeply appreciate all her teacher’s efforts in conveying her progress. The comments regarding her behavior were especially valuable in our discussion.  And had her numbers conveyed concerning trends (ie, consistently low scores and signs of significant struggling), I would be anxious to be aware in order to work with the teacher for interventions and support.

But for now, she learns because of her intrinsic love of learning. And I’m happy to continue to provide opportunities at home (and hear about those that occur at school) that continue to help pull that interest and enthusiasm.  

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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What If? On Coauthoring Learning Reports

I feel a pang of annoyance. Parent follow-up every day? I wonder if I should feel insulted by a lack of trust. And doesn’t that parent know I have 25 other students to monitor? And what if all of their parents requested the same level of communication?

Sadly, such was my attitude when I first started teaching whenever a parent asked for more frequent communication on their child.

Fortunately, over time, I started to recognize just how important it is for parents to have a better window into their children’s learning–not just because of the fact that they have entrusted them to my care for 7 hours a day, but also because I came to grasp just how really terrible grades are at conveying meaningful learning.

Student-led conferences helped me take one of the first leaps forward in creating that window. The student ownership, the authentic conversations, and the overall sense of meaning facilitated unprecedented parent/student/teacher communication. (the link above will take you to that process, along with a lot of pdf resources)!

Student blogging came next in furthering the communication cause. I knew I wanted my students to be able to showcase their learning journeys in ways their parents could more easily access. The students loved commenting on one another’s blog posts, but the real joy came as parents started leaving responses, too–words of encouragement, support, and love.

Now that I’m away from my classroom, I have time to reflect on how I can further build the school/home window.  Michael Bond-Clegg’s recent post, “Are We Prioritizing the Tradition of a Report Card Over Student Learning?” really got me pondering this when he writes:

timely-learning-reports

Here are just a few of my what ifs for now. I would love to hear your feedback, especially if it’s something you’ve tried/dreamed about as well!

  • What if teachers and students regularly coauthored learning reports (do you think something like this would work–I was thinking that notes could be added in each relevant category as learning developments worth noting arise, not as a chart to be completely filled each week)?
  • What if teachers openly discussed our anecdotal notes with each student and asked for their feedback?
  • What if parents were able to write and respond to notes with what they are seeing at home with regards to specific learning goals?
  • What if students were able to write and respond to notes with what they are experiencing with regards to specific learning goals?
  • What if we completely eliminated surprise “grades” and moments like those illustrated in the meme below?
Meme Binge
Meme Binge

featured image:

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Marveling Over Math

Many of us have a love/hate relationship with math. And depending on your students’ ages, they may have thoroughly convinced themselves that they hate it or are no good at it. If that’s the case, we have all the more responsibility to help our students see the bigger picture and the true beauty behind the numbers, starting with our own attitude.

4706488737_eccc281688_o
via Network Osaka

This is easily the most phenomenal mathematics video I’ve ever watched. Share it with your students to provoke inquiry and appreciation for math–and at only 1:41 minutes, don’t be afraid to play it again and again as the conversation deepens and understanding sinks in.

Provocation Questions:

  • What if we didn’t have a number system? (thanks Graeme Anshaw for sharing this excellent provocation)
  • Why do people decide they “don’t like math?”
  • What are the origins of math in human history?
  • What difference does it make in a person’s life to see him/herself as a mathematician?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto.com

Come back next Monday for another “Inspiring Inquiry” post. Read here for the rest of my weekly blogging topic schedule/background.

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Sitting On The Same Side of The Table: On Student Accountability

We’ve seen the signs.

stop-parent-sign

We’ve said to ourselves, “Been there!”


And we’ve typed out responses like, “Preach!”

Because student accountability is tough. But it’s also one of the slipperiest slopes in education.

On the one hand, we have a desire for/belief in students’ ability to grow, and expectations for responsibility.

An example of the reasoning in this camp includes when author Jessica Lahey says with regards to the above parent stop sign, “Childhood is a continual, long-term process of learning how to make our way in the world, and parents who short-circuit that education by rescuing their kids are not doing them any favors.”

On the other hand, we have a desire to both exemplify and show compassion, patience, and developmental understanding.

Outspoken advocates in this camp include Alfie Kohn when he states, “A pair of studies by researchers at the University of Texas and New York University confirmed that parents who “attribute greater competence and responsibility to misbehaving children” are more likely to get upset with them, to condemn and punish them. Such parents become frustrated by what they see as inappropriate behavior, and they respond, in effect, by cracking down on little kids for being little kids — something that can be heartbreaking to watch. By contrast, parents who understand children’s developmental limitations tend to prefer “calm explanation and reasoning” in response to the same actions.” http://www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/high-low/

Amid the missing papers, messy desks, and forgotten lunch ID numbers, it’s easy in our exasperation to want to point across the table at that little human’s deficiencies. To implement stricter consequences. To put up more posters on students taking responsibility.  In other words, it’s easy to put it all on the children in front of us, sitting across from them instead of “sitting next to” them (see Engaged Feedback Checklist below) to look at the issues together.

I don’t necessarily believe there’s never a place for the sentiment or action displayed in the above photos in specific contexts. BUT at the same time, I wonder how the culture in our classrooms would be impacted if these kinds of posters plastered our schools instead.

Like Brene Brown’s Feedback Checklist (this one had a significant impact on my attitudes and practices the year I decided to display it in my classroom):

brene-brown-feedback-checklist

Or this profound reminder to us all:

made-them-feel

Or even just:

good-day

Yes, student accountability is messy. But I think we do a better job navigating it if, instead of trying to create one-size-fits-all zero-tolerance policies, we choose to simply accept the messiness and focus on the relationships.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

Come back next Friday for another “Learning Through Reflecting” post. Read here for the rest of my weekly blogging topic schedule/background.

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The Urgency of Teaching (& Practicing) Curation

Your professors might have given you a list of amazing mentor texts, but did they teach you how to discover them for yourself?

They might have trained you to master certain tech platforms or skills. But did they teach you how to seek out new ones as the old ones evolve and/or die out?

They might have shared a phenomenal video that inspired you to your core, but did they share the source and their own process for accessing such resources?

“Teaching a man to fish” has always been serious business in the education world, but the art of curation is a distinct skill, and is becoming increasingly essential amid limitless access. When I graduated from college in 2009, I had yet to recognize the nuance between teaching valuable skills that allow students to gain self-sufficiency, and teaching students to discover the very sources that shape those skills.

This difference is best illustrated by the evolution of my language arts instruction. During my first year, I had been teaching conventions, word choice, voice, etc., with every hope that as my students practiced, they would further build upon their abilities and open more doors for themselves in the future. And they did exactly what I directed them to do. They corrected sentences. They wrote stories. They found impressive synonyms for weak words. But I sensed something was missing.

During my second year, I was introduced to reading workshop units alongside complementary writing workshop units. What I found most striking was the approach of immersing students in relevant, high-quality material at the beginning and throughout each unit.

Suddenly, my students didn’t just correct sentences; they noticed the reasons authors choose different sentence punctuation and lengths to achieve varied effects. The didn’t just write stories; they identified patterns across genres and chose their own story elements with purpose. They didn’t just replace weak words; they explored the power of all words and became more deliberate in their usage.

They had started to search out books and passages that elicited personal meaning, and kept track of them to inform their writing choices. In short, they were becoming curators.

What’s more, I noticed that this shift was causing me to become a better curator, too. I started to always be on the hunt for high-quality pieces to share with my students. And as we more openly sought and shared examples of work that moved, interested, or persuaded us, we all grew as readers and writers. Curation was the common denominator that allowed us to enter a world of authentic co-construction.

Overall, I learned that curation is not just about learning to navigate the massive amount of information. It’s about making sense of the world, while also making it personal.

What are your favorite ways to help students (and yourself) become better at curating? Please share in the comments.

For a great read on curation, check out:

http://www.spencerauthor.com/2016/09/getting-started-with-content-curation-in-the-classroom.html/

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

 

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Inspiring Inquiry: Popping the Monday-Friday Bubble

A Monday-Friday workweek is so commonplace that it has created a culture of its own. #TGIF, Hump Day, Garfield’s animosity toward Mondays–the list goes on. But what about people for whom it’s not the reality?

As members of my PLN stretch around the globe, I’ve become more familiar with people posting back-to-school Tweets in January, or starting school each week on Sundays. But recently, these differences have intrigued me enough to do some research.

For example, did you know that almost a third of countries listed on Wikipedia do not use the Monday-Friday workweek?

workweek-breakdown

Stats calculated from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workweek_and_weekend

I had a great time pondering the questions this simple concept elicited for me–I can only imagine where this would take students.

Provocation questions for students:

  • Why do some people start school on Saturdays or Sundays instead of Mondays?
  • Why do some countries have 6 day work weeks, while others have 5 day work weeks?
  • What is the history of the workweek and weekend? How have these concepts changed over time?
  • Why does Brunei Darussalam have the unique workweek of Monday-Thursday and Saturday?
  • What patterns do you see among countries with the same workweek?

Come back next Monday for another “Inspiring Inquiry” post. Read here for the rest of my weekly blogging topic schedule/background. 

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto