Maybe Not Why School, But How to School?

As I completed reading Why School by Will Richardson (2012), I find myself ruminating on the various ideas presented in the novel and how they will impact my own approach to education. When I applied to graduate school, one of my main arguments for wanting to be a teacher was that I felt the traditional curriculum—which has worked very well for me, historically—failed to account for other kinds of learners and that that was a gap I wanted to fill. I also argued that the kinds of knowledge and skills that I wanted my students to depart with were more about being able to do something or find the information to help them do something rather than having something memorized. Therefore, reading this book has really helped solidify those beliefs. At the end of Why School, Richardson breaks down his ideas into six key points regarding what educators need to do and/or think about in order to consider and incorporate the new way the world is due to innovation and technology. For my final reflection, I shall list them and write down Richardson’s and my own thoughts about their meaning and/or significance.

1. Share everything: Richardson notes that one of the first things that teachers can do to promote student learning is to share the resources that they have developed with other teachers, thereby lifting the practice of teaching as a whole. Transparency among educators would enable access to more ideas about what works and what does not work, promoting increased creativity and differentiation.
2. Discover, don’t deliver, the curriculum: Rather than envisioning yourself as someone who executes lesson plans, Richardson argues for a more collaborative model between students and the teacher for learning. Teachers, too, should be trying to learn more about the world as he or she encourages his or her students to do so. Instead of delivering the known curriculum all of the time, teachers should engage with the students in a creative, collaborative process that seeks to discover, rather than deliver, knowledge.
3. Talk to strangers: While there are certainly hazards in speaking with strangers online, Richardson notes that the ability to vet strangers is a skill we need to engrain in our students and children and that there is a lot of learning that can come from strangers. We do not learn a lot from people who think as we do—we learn the most from those who are different than us, those who have seen the world in a different way. Also, helping students meet and learn from strangers (for instance, perhaps an expert on the unit subject) provides a safe way to practice meeting strangers safely.
4. Be a master learner: One of the most powerful tools as a teacher is observational learning; therefore, teachers need to serve as role models for the value of and passion for learning. Also, passion is often infectious and students are in a period of their life where they are natural explorers with innate curiosity about the world. We need to model our own passion and curiosity while cultivating theirs.
5. Do real work for real audiences: Rather than simply assigning projects that stay assignments, consider incorporating projects that actually produce authentic, real-world knowledge.
6. Transfer the power: We need to give students real experiences that they can transfer into the “real world” rather than academic experiences that seem inapplicable to anything asked of them after they complete their compulsory education. Also, don’t necessarily primarily focus on teaching a student to know a content area – also teacher them how to learn about that content area in a meaningful way. That skill will come in far handier than a lot of other skill sets we impart on children as they make their way through their education.

This book overall resonates with my own approach to teaching. Perhaps it is the nature of working a secondary EBD program, but I truly believe that my job is to help my students learn the skills of learning in an increasingly technological world rather than the more traditional regurgitation of high schools past. I also identify very strongly with the idea that I am a role model of the value of learning—my students and I have the best rapport and learning when I am as engaged as they are, as committed to learning about something in an authentic and useful way. I also like the idea of connecting projects to a more real-world application. For instance, one of my English classes completed a project where they designed a hypothetical board or video game. However, I could connect this project to any of the many contests around the country that students submit work to. Adding that extra layer of motivation and interest would increase the likelihood of learning as well as build on skills that will be more useful in the world outside of school.

I feel like a proficient eReader user by the end of this course. I am sure that there are other features that I may come across eventually, but overall I feel as though I understand the program and navigate it easily. While I still enjoy reading books, particularly when that reading is for pleasure, I do find that the convenience of having my books with me whenever I could find space time to read was extremely useful, particularly the part where they are stored on something I was already hauling around anyway. I used the Wikipedia feature more this week, occasionally checking out the Wikipedia pages of quoted researchers or philosophers.

Richardson, Will. (2012). Why school?: How education must change when learning and information are everywhere [Kindle Single].Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Pining for Pinning: The Potential of Pinterest in the Classroom

Pinterest is a digital pinboard application that allows users to discover, collect, share, and store pictures and links to websites from multiple resources. Individuals can, upon creating an account, create various boards devoted to topics assigned by the user. These boards can be used for a variety of means, such as to develop projects, store ideas, organize events, and save pictures and data. For educational purposes, boards can also be used in a multitude of ways. For instance, a teacher could save resources regarding content area topics for students to use in an assignment, creating sort of a pseudo WebQuest. Teachers could also use it to share resources and information that is helpful to the class but not required. Students could also use Pinterest to present somewhat of a digital poster and/or bibliography, allowing students to both visually and textually demonstrate their knowledge as well as provide a way to collaborate and share.

Like most registrations for apps, Pinterest is incredibly easy to set up. Once I entered a username, email, and password, there was a tutorial to learn how to use Pinterest or the option to immediately starting pinning. Another available option is to link the account to a Facebook account, thus improving the ability to share with others.

The overall set up is extremely user-friendly. There is a search bar that, once something is entered, also suggests related tags to help users find what they are looking for. When I clicked on a pin, a window popped up that enabled me to go back, favorite the item, place a location on the item, Facebook it, or even more. This was all in addition to pinning the item to my own board. Another feature is that the boards are able to be made secret, if the user so chooses. Comments are able to be added to the bottom of pins, often including information regarding what the pin itself is about or could be used for. It really is a great way to organize a lot of information in a visually pleasing way.

I very easily designed a board relating an upcoming mythology unit that I am teaching. For my students, I could easily use this to store resources found by students on upcoming units. I could also use it as project in and of itself: students could be asked to pin five links relating to their topic as well as five pictures, storing it on a board. This could provide them not only an opportunity to engage with new technology but to also practice their digital literacy skills at identifying valid and reliable resources. Then, students could look at other student boards in order to learn about the topics that other students researched. I also like the idea of students creating boards to share information on interests with one another, or having a class account with boards focused on information from units as well as class-related materials.

A screenshot of the board created by my school’s librarian.

While I certainly like the creativity of incorporating Pinterest to promote student engagement and motivation, I feel like this resource better serves me as a tool for collecting ideas about behavior management, instructional strategies, and general classroom activities than for student use. However, my intern school’s library uses Pinterest as a resource for students to find out what new books are coming out as well as a reference for other resources, which I think is another creative way to use the program.

Rethinking Teaching and Assessment: What to Teach and What to Test On

As I continue to read Why School (2012) by Will Richardson, I am struck by the pertinence of his message. While the entire focus of this EDTC course has, on some level, been that the incorporation of technology is a critical in order to enable our students to become fully educated members of the 21^st century, the reality is that it is this novel that seems to have given me more pause than other novels and the posts. Ultimately, at its crux, teaching is about giving people as many tools (in the form of skills and knowledge) that we possibly can in order to promote the good of society as a whole. And if that is our goal, then we must consider how technology fits into that, because technology is increasingly a significant portion of our everyday lives. This does not have to mean a complete overhaul—Richardson (2012) himself notes that this process is in transition and therefore we must, at this current point, teach “old-school expectations and new-world realities alike” (Kindle Location 304). But it does mean rethinking a lot of the ways we assess and teach.

He looks at where to start, too, which is always one of the most important pieces of information for myself when I’m attempting to take this larger, abstract concept and transform it into meaningful action. And like much of our other readings suggest: it comes back to me. If I am to model and teach these various digital skill sets, I, too, need to be able to have them. I need to be learning as many of my students are learning recreationally, not only for my own personal and professional development, but also so that I can understand these new world that my students are learning in, too.

But I also need to be looking at my teaching practice and examining assessment and teaching practices and strategies. For instance, with regard to assessment, I need to take a critical look at what I really want my students to walk away with in terms of knowledge. Is it more important to me that my students remember the order of the presidents (a memorization from eighth grade that, outside of a Die Hard movie and playing Jeopardy, has served me very little as an adult) or that they know where to find different types of information and resources regarding the presidents? Or even that they understand how the position of president works, regardless of who is in office? One of the most useful tools a teacher has in his or her arsenal with regard to lesson design is backwards design, whereby the teacher starts with what he or she wants the students to know. That is basically what Richardson is asking teachers to think about – what do they really want their students to learn in a world where memorization lacks the functionality it may have had in the past because most answers at one’s technological fingertips? What do I want my students to be able to do and know? Richardson suggest that performance rather than memorization tests would be more sufficient measures.

If one shifts one’s assessment content, then, through backwards design, it stands to reason that the curriculum and delivery method must change, too. Richardson (2012) includes a quote from Herbert Gerjuoy, a psychologist, who stated that: “the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write. The illiterate will be those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn” (Kindle Locations 366-367). Just as reading was a major focus on education for countless years (and still today), the reality is that there is a new literacy, too: this ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn information as our technological innovation continues to provide new insights and knowledge into the world around us. Teachers need to embrace this new literacy, focusing on how well a student can do something rather than memorize something.

With regard to the Kindle eReader, I attempted to read this section of the textbook on my phone but found that while the mobility of the cell phone was ideal, the screen size was not! I really struggled to adjust to reading on my phone and ultimately found myself returning to the PC version. The features between the two devices were comparable – I was able to modify the same settings on my iPhone as I was on the PC version. I think that I like having access to my textbooks on my phone in case of an emergency, but reading them only on my phone is not a practice that I would often engage in. But the convenience for those just in-case situations? That cannot be denied.

Richardson, Will. (2012). Why school?: How education must change when learning and information are everywhere [Kindle Single]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

21st Century Literacy: Where Do I and My Students Stand?

In the TEDTalk book “Why School,” author Will Richardson (2012) explores the relationship between learning and the technology explosion of the last century. The reality is that innovation has changed every facet of human for those its spread has touched, and one of the biggest areas of possible impact is that of education. Yet, in spite of the rapid level of innovation, it seems that there is a significant amount of untapped potential for technology to transform the classroom experience. There has, for many reasons, been a lag between the development of new technology and its adoption into educational practices. For instance, our model for curriculum delivery has really not changed as much as one would expect considering the dramatic shift in areas such as communication and productivity tools. We are often still teaching for the big test. In addition, our curriculum is somewhat surprisingly unmodified in its content – we are still teaching a lot of the same concepts and ideas as before despite the plethora of emerging new information each day. Therefore, Richardson seeks to address whether or not that is a good thing and how we should examine our traditional models of school and education in order to examine how we can best harness technology and learning for the future.

With regard to my own learning, I already sense that this novel will be an enjoyable and educational read for me. This is largely due to the philosophical perspective of the novel, in addition to the user-friendly jargon and syntax. The novel reads a bit like a nerdy letter among colleagues: casual and informal, yet by no means without substance. The (thus far) heavy weight placed on the author’s role as a parent is interesting and welcome, given that as graduate students, much of the reading is written from a strictly academic perspective, yet some of our primary interactions outside of our coworkers and students will be with parents. After reading one particular passage, I had to consider my own level of 21^st-century literacy—I can’t help but realize that I am among the 90%. Which begs that question: how am I going to rectify that, no only for myself but as a model for my students?

For my students, I sense that this novel will help guide my ideas regarding technology and instructional practices as well as curriculum that incorporates digital literacy. In particular, I gave a great deal of pause with regard to how my students might be impacted by the list of 21^st century literacies. It made me think about the lessons I have designed and whether or not they are seeking to address those literacies in addition to basic reading literacy. It’s a tricky issue, particularly in my program where we are often trying to remediate grade-level reading deficiencies. As a Special Education educator, I need to look at that list and see how I can link those skills with the basic skill set I am working on with my students. I’m really looking forward to reading more of this book.

As previously mentioned, I feel very comfortable with the Kindle eReader outside of one issue. When using it on a PC, if I click in any area where it thinks I might be attempting to ascertain the definition of a word, it immediately pops up with the box that enables me to highlight, note, copy, and more. However, sometimes I am attempting to do something else or even to just go on reading, and it bugs me a bit. I think I will attempt to read a bit of next week’s readings on my phone to see if this is an issue across the app or merely something to do with using it on a PC. This is not an issue I’ve had when using iBooks, for instance.

Richardson, Will. (2012). Why school?: How education must change when learning and information are everywhere [Kindle Single]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Self-Organized Learning in the Context of a Support-Heavy EBD Program

The remaining sections of Sugata Mitra’s Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning (2012) explores how to set up, manage, and use self-organized learning environments (SOLE). Mitra also includes tips and observations from practitioners, as well as the observed benefits from the implementation of SOLEs. I appreciated the inclusion of this section, as sometimes it is difficult to take abstract theory and effectively execute it, theoretical underpinnings and all. For my own learning, it is helpful to see how others have taken the theory and applied it to their own concrete examples.

In particular, I read this section with consideration about how I could incorporate SOLEs into an EBD (emotional and/or behavior disorder) program at the secondary level. I have to admit that it would be difficult to a certain degree—a lot of the work done in my program emphasizes academic and therapeutic support. Students are often in many general education classes and use the program and its various supports to engage in other content area teachers’ classes. A lot of the emotional and/or behavioral disorders contribute to issues such as attendance and behavior, which means that students are often working towards making up work in their content area courses.

One way that I could see myself using minimally invasive education and a mini-SOLE would be creating a small space in my classroom that exemplified the values of a SOLE but wert not necessary completely based around it. The idea would be that a student could independently or with a small group engage in a self-organized learning project in a small space within the classroom. In addition, I feel like self-organized learning projects could be really useful in Behavior Self-Management, a class where students practice social and emotional skills. Having students research an idea regarding health and wellness while practicing digital literacy skills and independent learning seems like a good match. Additionally, it is a safe class to reduce the amount of scaffolding for students with regard to a task at hand.

This week, I messed around with more of the features of the Kindle Reader. I manipulated the background color (though I quickly retreated back to the white), font size, words per line, and brightness, trying out different combinations until I landed on something I preferred. I almost wish there were a few more features, such as the ability to have the text read-aloud or to change the font itself. Perhaps there is a Kindle Reader app with a fee that provides more options in that regard. Overall, the Kindle Reader app is quite user-friendly and I have no issues with using it for my eTextbooks, except perhaps for the eyestrain!

Mitra, Sugata (2012). Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning[Kindle Single]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Using Coggle to Create Collaborative Mind-Maps

One of the best methods for the promotion of student learning is the use of collaboration in the classroom. One digital tool to facilitate student collaboration is Coggle. This program is similar to GoogleDocs, enabling enables people to work together to create and/or organize information. However, unlike other programs which focus on the linear organization of information, Coggle allows people to create and manage collaborative information in the form of mind-mapping.

A Coggle about Chris McCandless, subject of the novel Into the Wild.

Registration to use Coggle was very easy, as I simply had to use my google account. I was quickly able to start a Coggle. I chose to focus mine on quotes by Christopher McCandless since one of my classes is reading Into the Wild. For the most part, the format and design is user-friendly. On the left hand side, all of the various actions are listed, and if you click on one, a description of how to complete that action flashes on your Coggle. There is also a list of shortcuts to further enhance the user’s ability to manipulate the Coggle in an easy and quick fashion. Also, when you click on the center of a branch, a circle of all available actions appears around the branch, enabling you to pick out which action you would like to perform. The branches on the Coggle can be easily moved and are visually pleasing as they warp based on how the user moves his or her mouse.

One challenge is that moving the branches and organizing the information does take a little bit of getting used to, perhaps not as immediately instinctive as one might want. However, a little bit of exploration yields a much better understanding and ability to manipulate the branches. A user would definitely have to spend some time with the program before being able to produce a well-organized Coggle, in my estimation. I spent a lot of time trying to move branches before coming to realize that one had to move what was connected to the branches to organize. While that certainly makes sense within the context of the program, I did feel frustrated until I figured it out.

Overall, the visual component of this program is highly engaging.  I spent quite a while organizing my information into different branches, and I can see the immense value in being able to organize information in this manner. I also like the idea that students can collaborate on a Coggle; each student could be responsible for creating one branch under a larger topic. Students can also more readily draw connections between ideas, using the branches to demonstrate how ideas are linked together.  Mind maps are a significant way in which educators help students associate information and Coggle is a digital tool that, with practice, can help students do that.

How Can Educators Capitalize on the Value of Self-Governed Learning?

In the first half Sugata Mitra’s Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning, he explores a scientific experiment that ultimately results in the idea of minimally invasive education (MIE). This form of learning happens when children learn in environments with minimal adult direction or supervision, instead governing their own acquisition of knowledge. I found the entire research project to be incredibly interesting, particularly the various characteristics identified that did not impact the ability to engage in MIE as well as the number of skills (and their far-reaching impact) that children were able to acquire simply by having free and public access to a computer with Internet (Mitra, 2012). For instance, Mitra (2012) notes that students were able to teach themselves another language enough to navigate email, chat, and search engines and even improved their math and science scores in school.

Ultimately, this reading reminds me that children do like to learn. They think about so many parts of the world around them and soak up information like sponges, easily and constantly creating connections between various schemas in their minds. They are natural explorers using their senses to learn about the world around them. And yet, by the time they arrive at high school, they seem over it to a certain degree. Naturally, a part of this is simply the cynicism that comes with suffering through puberty, but I can’t help but wonder if part of it is also how structured and rigid schooling has become. If students had more ownership of their learning, more opportunities to simply explore the answers to questions that they had, would they do better in school? It reminds me a bit of how some companies allow a “free” day whereby people work on independent projects at work, and yet this “free” day ultimately results in increased innovation and productivity in the workplace. Would our students learn more and enjoy learning more if we provided more opportunities for them to learn about the things they wanted to learn about?

One of the biggest considerations I have about the reading in relation to my students is how I can structure projects into their time at school that capitalize on minimally invasive education with technology while still meeting standards for various content areas. At the secondary level in an EBD classroom, attendance is a significant issue, which means I’m often working on remediation of basic skills rather than having students work on projects that advance their skill set. In addition, the skill level of my students often requires considerable scaffolding for progress. How can I continue to provide support but also offer opportunities for independent exploration and learning? How can technology help me do that? One idea is offering a small break whereby a student can research a topic for twenty minutes before coming back to discuss what he or she has learned. Skills practiced could include synthesizing ideas learned, navigating the Internet and finding reliable sources, along with many others.

With regards to the Kindle Reader, I have finally hit my stride in use. I hardly notice what I originally perceived as inconvenient about it, instead finding it nice that I can easily do my reading during a lull at work. In addition, when I use it on my iPad, I no longer struggle with visual tiredness, as that screen is far better equipped for being read on. I easily read through, clicking through the pages and highlight information I find interesting. In fact, I felt that I read my assigned reading for this book much quicker than the last (though, I also prefer the writing style of this author, so that may be a variable). Overall, I find myself not nearly so reluctant to use the technology.

Mitra, Sugata (2012). Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning [Kindle Single]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.