*Note: the book focuses mainly on high school–I would be interested to
see what teachers in the elementary grades have to think about the
book.

Themes

• Most schools approach teaching using the factory model; 30 kids in a class, assigned by age.  It is difficult for teachers to address their students’ individual learning styles.  Some students get left behind and some get bored because everyone has to move along at the same pace.  They mentioned that much of teacher training focuses on classroom management: an  essential element in the factory model. 
• Technology can help; programs that teach kids according to their learning styles and only allow the student to move on when the student has mastered the content.  We aren’t there yet, but the authors are optimistic that collaborative on-line tools will be built that will allow teachers, students and others to create tutorials, lessons and so on that will help others to learn. 
• Cater to non-consumption.  The authors point out that disruptive innovations usually target non-consumption.  They give the example of the early SONY transistor radios; they were cheap and the sound wasn’t great, but they were popular with teenagers who could not afford the only other option–big, expensive table top or floor model radios.  Teenagers, previously non-consumers of radios, became the new consumers of the disruptive technology.  In education the areas where we will see change is with courses that schools cannot offer due to student numbers and other factors.  Distributed learning schools are not going to be successful if they are focusing on courses that regular bricks and mortars school already offer. 
• The disruptive innovations will not be successful under the current structures.  He gave the example of Toyota’s experience with hybrid cars.  Toyota put together a team to build a hybrid from the ground up.  They didn’t have to use existing components and make do.  They could re-engineer all of the systems so that the final product was efficient and worked well.  Other car manufacturers did not take this approach, and their hybrid cars are inferior.

The Journey from Here to There

In my position as a teacher in a distributed learning (DL) high school I can see the growth in demand for a different model of schooling.  In my district budgets are getting tighter and enrollment is dropping so creative solutions are being looked at.  This fall all of our grade 10 students will be enrolled in Planning 10 (a core course) delivered in an on-line format.  Doing Planning 10 on-line, outside of the time-table, will allow the students more choice; there won’t be timetable clashes between planning 10 and other courses.  It will also be possible for students to take more than a full load of courses.  One can’t help but wonder if being exposed to planning 10 on-line will encourage students to take other courses on-line, that currently are not offered at their school. 

Right now, many of the on-line courses I have seen are not geared towards a range of learners.  Typically, the kids who deal well with text, and are self disciplined enough to stick to a time line do well.  There is not a lot of differentiation… yet.  A lot of the talk at the distributed learning conference I attended in the spring (Virtual School Society Annual Spring Conference) was about how to cater to the big range of students who are now exploring distributed/on-line learning.  People on the front lines want modular courses, where you can put together a course that is designed to meet the needs of the learner.  I think we’ll start to see these.  Currently though, the cost to put together a complete on-line course can be quite high.  I’ve heard estimates of $40,000 to produce one on-line course.  On the one hand I am doubtful that we will see the modularity and differentiation that is written about in Disrupting Class, but on the other hand I am constantly amazed at the incredible applications that are available on the web, so who knows?

I’d like to know a bit more about the authors’ visions of the role of the teacher in this new model.  Right now as a DL teacher I can tell you that one of my biggest challenges is getting good lines of communication flowing between myself and my students.  I’ve written about communication with my students here and here.  Currently I rely on e-mail and phone to communicate with students, but recently it occurred to me that e-mail is very old school–I’ve got to explore the ways that my students are most comfortable communicating.  For example, many students don’t use e-mail, but are constantly texting; would they text me with their questions if that was an option?

Canadian Perspective

It definitely seems like it is a much more tumultuous time in education in the USA than in Canada.  Frequently in Disrupting Class the authors referred to the negative impact of teacher unions and the tension between public schools and charter schools.  That is not to say that those tensions do not exist in Canada; just that the magnitude is much much lower.

The Wrap Up

Where do you see the future of on-line learning?  If you read the book, what did you think of it?  As always, thanks for reading my post! 

Questions by Oberazzi

My Questions:

• How do you make PD sticky?  We’ve all gone to a conference or PD day, learned some wonderful (or not) things, then gone back to our classrooms never to revisit those ideas again.  How to make them sticky? 
• How do you encourage teachers to start their own Professional Learning Networks (PLN) and provide them with the skills to be successful? 
• How do you support the sharing of ideas and resources within your local area?  I’ve been very lucky to connect with wonderful educators from around the English speaking world, but know very little about the teachers in my own small school district.
• How do you truly integrate technology and support your teachers while doing so?

Over at Charlie Roy’s blog I left this comment on technology integration:

The training element of introducing new technology is always a challenge. The approach that you took this year sounds like a good start. You definitely have to meet people where they are at. In my dream school the director of technology would be a consultant. S/he would meet with teachers one on one; the individual teachers would outline what their objectives with a particular unit or project are and the director of tech would come up with a variety of ways to integrate technology. Doing a poetry unit? Let me suggest using Wordles, or Voice Threads, or… and here’s how to proceed.

I think that you also have to find the people in your school or district who are really into integrating technology into their teaching and/or professional learning and support them like crazy.  You’re going to see great things from them and the goal is that they will inspire others.  I’m not sure that converting people overtly is going to work, but diffusion just might do it.

What do you think?  Do you have answers to my questions above?  I’m happy for some push back and sharing of ideas.  Cheers!

student teacher by peiqianlong
Attribution License

Blogs, Twitter, and social networks are making it easier to network with and learn from other educators, but for the most part they don’t allow for actual observation.  Lately, however, I’ve been able to get in some virtual classroom observations and it’s been great!  This past year I’ve taken a number of week long on-line professional development classes through KnowSchools.  In addition, I’ve been training to be an assistant facilitator for KnowSchools which has allowed me an inside peek as to how the different facilitators organize and run their week long classes.  The classes are done using Moodle and it has been fascinating to see how the different facilitators make use of the different features in Moodle.  So I’m learning about some great ways to improve my teaching practice and I’m getting to observe talented educators and how they teach.

I’ve also participated in some virtual PD offered in Elluminate Live from a variety of sources; today I popped in (briefly) to Classroom 2.0’s weekly show.  I use Elluminate Live with my distributed learning students so whenever I’m in a session that someone else is moderating I’m looking for good ideas that I can steal!  It’s also good to experience an Elluminate Live session as a participant.  It reminds me that it is boring just to sit and listen to the moderator; I need to give my students an active way to participate and discuss ideas and I need to engage them with good visuals.

Do you take the opportunity to observe your colleagues as they teach?  If so, how do you make time to do this?  Do you prefer live and in person, or virtual observations?  I’d love to hear from you

For Example:

The Take Home Message

What About You?

How can we change the system so that more teachers are rewarded for not taking the short cuts?

Chris’ post was inspired by video number 8 in Dan Meyer’s summer video posts–which have been excellent.

How To Keep The Ones We Love?

In response to one of the comments, Chris outlined what he does in his role as principal to improve the sustainability of the profession. You should really check out Chris’ comment in its entirety*, but basically he says that he;

• - buys extra teaching positions to reduce the student to teacher ratio
• - treats his teachers with an ethic of care
• - fosters collegiality and collaboration amongst his teachers

These things come at a cost–for example; reductions in non-teaching positions–so the choices are still difficult ones to make. My favourite quote from Chris’ comment is this;

In the end, I believe that high school teachers shouldn’t have more than 80 kids on their academic roster. Teachers should not teach 70% of their working day, because that guarantees that the diligent teacher is consigning themselves to 60 hour work weeks — minimum. Both those solutions mean spending a lot more money, but I think that’s what it takes.

30% Preparation Time–Where Do I Sign Up?

I can tell you that I would have loved to have 30% of every teaching day as prep

Photo by estherase
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

time. In my last school, a grade 8 – 12 school, we ran a semester system. It meant that for one semester (half the year) you taught 4 out of 4 classes. For the other semester you taught 3 out of 4 classes and one block was for prep. A week into the new semester you could walk into the staffroom and tell right away who had prep and who didn’t. Those without prep, if they were even in the staffroom at all, had that tense wide eyed look you see on horses when they’re spooked. Those with prep had a whole different body language–sitting relaxed on the couches, joking with their colleagues.

When I had prep in a semester, life was pretty good. I would only have about 75 students to keep track of, and I would have the chance to overhaul some units and do some fresh stuff. I could collaborate with other teachers who had prep at the same time, or I could come in and watch another teacher’s lesson during my prep and learn from them. And when I got home, I could actually spend quality time with my own children. The end result was that my students had a teacher who was more relaxed, able to roll with it, better able accommodate their needs, and able to provide more challenging and engaging activities. Conversely, when I had no prep I was responsible for around 100 students and always seemed to be running fast just to stay in one place. I’d often scarf down lunch in my room while I prepared for the afternoon lessons–missing out on valuable time to connect with my colleagues.

Now maybe for Chris that 30% wouldn’t be all prep time, but I’m sure that it would be time that would allow teachers to do a better job and provide a better learning environment for their students.

Weighing In

If you teach in K-12 how much prep time in the teaching day do you get? What do you think would be the ideal? How else could we make the profession sustainable?

*I haven’t figured out yet how to make a link to a specific part of a webpage yet, so you’ll have to go to the post and browse the comments.

Definitely worth a look if you teach any chemistry, otherwise forward it on to a colleague who does!

Divergent Thinking

Robinson discusses divergent thinking, which he feels is a prerequisite for creative thinking. He refers to a longitudinal study where children were given a test on divergent thinking at ages 3 – 5 and then every 5 years for a number of years. Using the predetermined benchmark for “genius” in terms of divergent thinking, the results are startling, perhaps not in their trend, but in their magnitude. At ages 3 – 5 years 98% of the children scored at a genius level (I believe the sample size was 1500). It then rapidly dropped off (I can’t locate the exact figures) until at adulthood those scoring at the genius level represent only 3% of the population.

Schools Kill the Creativity in Children

Robinson argues that schools kill the creativity in children, not on purpose, but they do it none-the-less and they do it systematically. He argues that our current school system, based on the industrial revolution no longer works. The industrial revolution needed a large number of workers with basic literacy and numeracy to work in the factories, a smaller number of more literate and numerate people were needed to manage the workers, and the top level of the hierarchy were those who would attend universities and become the doctors, lawyers, and leaders of industry. Today’s societies and economies have different needs. We need creative thinkers to tackle the issues of increased urbanization, global warming, the incredible growth of the Earth’s human population…

We should be encouraging creative thinking, we should be nurturing the talents that children have, we should not be aiming for conformity.

So How Do We Do That?

I think that Robinson makes some very compelling points, but I’m struggling with the practical aspects. I would love to see a school where they are free to abandon standardized testing, teach to the talents of the students, and group students based upon pedagogically sound reasons (not merely based upon birth dates). Then there is the on-going debate of what information is necessary for all our citizens to learn. If a student’s talent is in visual arts, is there anything from the other subject areas that can be omitted so that they can fully pursue their talent? I do not want to come off as a naysayer–I really like Sir Robinson’s ideas, I’m just having difficulty visualizing the system he proposes. Does project based learning address some of the issues he discusses? Perhaps I’ll just have to read his books to get a better idea.

What Do You Think?

Do schools systematically kill creativity? Is there a way to revolutionize schools and education to promote creative thinking? How do you work toward it in your own sphere of influence?

As always, thanks for reading!

Image: Which one… ? by carf. Licensed under a Creative Commons, attribution non-commercial no derivatives license.

I Believe…

• - every child deserves respect
• - every child should be valued
• - every child has strengths that need to be recognized
• - no one deserves to be told that they can’t do something or that they’ll never amount to anything
• - education must be relevant to the learner
• – assessment needs to be meaningful
• - students must be given the opportunity to discuss and reflect upon what they are learning
• – grades should not be used.  as a motivator.  as an end in themselves.
• – the focus should be on the process, not just the product
• – learning builds on prior knowledge; it is a teacher’s role to uncover that knowledge
• – our students are diverse so our teaching methods should be too
• – there is more than one way to demonstrate knowledge
• – the best education encourages wonder
• – a good education should empower students with the skills to be able to continue learning about the things that are important to them.

These are just a few of the things that I believe with respect to education.

The Thing About Blog Memes

I’m not a memeticist, but I’m not sure that this is really what Dawkins would call a meme.  I can’t help but feel that they are pretty similar to chain letters with the exceptions that

1. they rarely demand that you tag a required amount of people in a limited amount of time or else…   and
2. men are just as likely to participate in memes as women–unlike chain letters which seem to be the domain of women and girls

Tag–You’re It!

So it is with great trepidation that I tag the following people:
Kevin /dogtrax (Kevin’s Meandering Mind)

Sarah Stewart (Sarah’s Musings)

My trepidation is they will see this tag as an onerous task to add to their to-do lists.  If it catches your fancy–great, do it (I’m keen to find out what you believe!)  If not, that is ok too.

The Final Word

What do you believe is truly important with respect to education?  Write a post or leave a comment below.  It is an interesting exercise, to be sure!

Image: ‘Tag!  You’re It!’ by Lance and Erin licensed under creative commons attribution, non-comercial, no derivitives works 2.0 generic.

Recent events have me wondering about the line between my public life and private life, my personal life and my professional life. They also have me thinking about a post over at Students 2.o by Sean the Bass Player back in February. Sean’s post, Where Do We Draw The Line?, discusses whether teachers would want to have students joining their on-line networks. It’s a good post with lots of interesting comments. When I first read it I thought about commenting, but I just couldn’t articulate how I felt about the issue. Here are some of the events that made me look back at Sean’s post.

Event #1: earlier in the month Al Upton closed his Al Upton and the miniLegends blog, as requested by the South Australia Department of Education and Children’s Services, due to concerns over his student blogging project.

Event #2: around the same time, but for very different reasons, Jabiz Raisdana agreed to resign from his school in Quatar due to objections raised over an art project he posted on his personal blog.

Lots to think about in those two situations, and many people have been blogging about them (see these posts at Remote Access and Cool Cat Teacher for a start as well as the above links to Al Upton and Jabiz Raisdana).

Event #3: then yesterday, in a totally different situation, Dean Shareski posted about a disagreement that he had with blogger Matthew Tabor. I had heard Dean tweet about the argument on Twitter and I had read the comments on Matthew’s blog. In Dean’s post he says “It’s not that I regret posting the item to twitter it’s calling him obnoxious that was wrong.” He goes on to say “I’ve gotten so comfortable using Twitter that I’ve forgotten, it’s not private.”

These events are mixing in my head; I’m thinking about:

• - how to teach my students to interact with 21st century tools while keeping them safe
• - how to let the students’ parents and community see that they are safe
• - how to maintain a personal blog that is public and still maintain my professionalism
• - how it is possible, as Dean says, to become so comfortable with web 2.0 tools, such as Twitter that we forget that it is not private.

And lastly, I am wondering, is a teacher a teacher 24 hours a day?

Anyhow, back to Sean’s post, Where Do We Draw The Line?, regarding whether teachers would want to have students joining their on-line networks. After what I’ve written about above, I guess it comes down to this; there is no hard and fast line.

It can be very rewarding interacting and corresponding with creative and thoughtful students, but for a teacher there is also an inherent risk. As a teacher I have to be concerned about my perceived conduct, especially when young people are involved. Am I a teacher 24 hours a day? No, but it is certainly not just during the hours when I’m at school or prepping. The line is blurry, it wiggles a bit, it is not hard and fast. We don’t draw the line, others later retrace our steps and sketch in the line where they think it should be.

Images: Lines and Ceiling Light 1 by tanakawho (creative commons attribution licence)

This Thursday is our students’ live video conference with Daniel Pink. They’ve finished A Whole New Mind and this is their chance to ask Mr. Pink some questions directly, as well as further discuss the book with their classmates. We’ll have all four classes of students (about 110 or so) in our Forum and will conduct a video Skype call with Mr. Pink.

They also decided to Ustream the discussion and have the live blog discussion hosted on CoverItLive. I caught the post just in time this morning to log onto Ustream. Along with about 80 other viewers I was able to watch (and I could have participated in side discussions) part of the amazing discussion. Some live Ustream talks I have watched were not of very good quality, technically speaking; this was not the case today! It was amazing to hear the mature discussion between the students and Daniel Pink. It was difficult to follow the conversations on CoverItLive as the comments were coming so fast and furious!

Today’s experience really highlights how powerful web 2.0 tools can be in education. The students were totally engaged and clearly understood the key points of Daniel Pink’s book, judging from their questions to the author and the way they were rippin’ it up on CoverItLive. Imagine trying to offer the students (and interested educators) this sort of opportunity without web 2.0 tools.

Thank you Karl Fisch for sharing this experience with other educators; it is really something to aspire to!

Addendum: February 29th–A big thank you to Anne Smith and Maura Moritz, who Karl Fisch pointed out in the comments, are the English 9 teachers who organized the whole learning experience.  And the grade 9 students at Arapahoe High; you really showed people how thoughtful and involved with your learning you are, well done!