Staying a step ahead of evolution

Lest the title of this post cause the reader to get sidetracked concerning issues of science vs. religion, I assure you these thoughts have nothing to do with either.  These thoughts were prompted by a tweet from someone (whom I cannot remember or locate at the moment) which said something to the effect of we don't know how to plan for innovation, selling televisions, and this article about the abolishment of cursive writing in the state of Indiana.

Planning for innovation - some companies do it well.  Google is probably the flagship organization in this area.  There are others and you can read about them in The Future of Management by Gary Hamel.  It's worth the read if this post stirs you in any way.

Selling televisions - I work part time for a major electronic retailer in the home theater department. I was helping a customer pick out a television the other day when she said, "I want to buy something that will keep up with all the technology and advancements for the next ten years." To which I responded, "That's impossible. Technology and innovation do not work that way." I then explained using concrete examples of what has happened just in the last eighteen months in the home theater industry.

Abolishing cursive - This is one I've almost come full circle on. I'm currently sitting at about 270 degrees. For you trig people that would be three-halfs pi, but I digress. We currently home school both our children. My wife and I spent a lot of time debating whether we should teach cursive to our children. In the interest of marital bliss, I gave her the deciding vote and she voted yes. No biggie. I kept my thoughts to myself about how no one uses it anymore; it's a relic left over from the days of reducing ink smears when writing with a goose feather; in fifteen years nothing will be written by hand, it will only appear in the air as you type on your holographic keyboard, etc.

The article quotes Andee Anderson of the Indiana University Northwest Urban Teacher Education Program as saying teachers haven’t had the time to teach cursive writing for some time because it’s not a top priority. As a result students’ handwriting is atrocious. Man, I can concur with that last one. I teach in North Carolina and I could have sworn that my students were writing in Sanskrit or Hindi this past year. My humanities teammate instituted the Handwriting Rescue program for these students. Part of the motivation was also because some research had shown that because students had not learned the skills of forming letters properly that seemingly unrelated areas of their brains were not properly developed and therefore they were deficient in other areas like critical thinking, problem solving, etc. I was sold because I was witnessing the latter skill deficiencies.

Such interconnectedness fit nicely into what I would tell my students on a frequent basis. We know now that the brain is fairly plastic. During the preschool and adolescent years, neural pathways get created and pruned depending on how the brain itself is used. Research has shown (sorry, didn't have time to look it up) that students in China think differently than students in the US partly because they use a pictographic handwriting system. It creates different pathways in their brains and therefore potentially different skill sets. And let's not forget this iconic article Is Google Making Us Stupid?.

I promise, this is nearing a conclusion. From a pedagogical and curriculum development perspective, how do we factor all this in? "Research-based" is the buzz word. Marzano is the point man here. He has gone as far as to say that use of such methods will cause an increase in student achievement. Justin Baeder has written an excellent critique of those claims here. Let's assume that the claims are true. Living by such methods only makes us guilty of getting what we always got because of doing what we've always done. If our teaching methods and by extension our assessment methods are based in the past, how are we planning for innovation? How are we allowing for the brain to develop new skills? Has the quest for the "science" of teaching really become a religion of devotion to a particular philosophy?

In other words, how do we teach the students of today for the world of tomorrow?

Spending a year offline - part 1

This past school year has been very interesting for me.  I spent most of it offline.  I don't mean just absent from Facebook and Twitter, the latter having been my preferred place of residence.  I mean almost completely offline.  I blogged maybe twice during that time.  I only participated in two or three #edchats.  I rarely even checked my personal email.  I think the bulk of my online activity was Googling for map directions or Christmas gift ideas.

What happened?  The short version is this:

1. I had to take a part time job to make ends meet.  I made the decision to spend my little free time with my family instead of on a computer because I knew I would never get off otherwise.
2. My access to technology at school dramatically changed.  

• I went from having five desktops in my classroom to one, and that one worked REALLY slowly.  
• The laptop carts were in constant use.  This was in theory a good thing for all the students.
• My own personal technology died on me - my LCD projector, my netbook, and my homemade IWB.  All purchased with my own money.  If you want to know why I didn't repair it, see #1.

So the past ten months provided an opportunity to gain a new perspective on things.  First, the immediate consequences.  I felt really disconnected.  I am amazed at how strongly I felt about the relationships with my online acquaintances.  Besides all the nuggets of wisdom I used to glean everyday, I enjoyed the social interaction.  I missed the convos that would happen during #edchat or when other hot topics would pop up.  I missed trying to keep up with all the feeds in my Google reader and then sharing all that I had learned.  I missed our own local edcamp and the opportunity for F2F interactions as well.

Second, it totally changed the way I taught.  When my personal equipment failed, gone was the opportunity to stop whatever we were doing as a class and search for an answer or connect with another class for input.  I had to come up with new ways to make sure that I was creating learning opportunities that challenged all my students on all levels of Blooms and did so in meaningful ways, not just for the sake of work completion.  I found myself slipping more and more into not only out of vogue techniques, but less effective ones as well.  It was hard and I felt bad for my students many days.

I don't know if anyone cares about Part 1, much less any future installments I might write about. But I am an extremely introspective individual (some have called me a "frowny faced introvert"), so more will come.  I did learn a lot as a result of this year and some of it is worth sharing.  Thanks for helping me weed through it.

Today was great day. . .

Today was a great day in the classroom.  In fact, the last two weeks have just been awesome.  This year I am teaching 7th grade and I have one section each of general math, pre-algebra, and algebra 1.  And for the record, I am at least 1 month behind in getting everything on the standard course of study (SCOS) covered in time for Testivus and its annual celebration of end of grade testing.

Why am I behind?  I'm glad you asked.  I'm behind because we have spend so much time just learning and making connections.  I took more time than was recommended on a few key concepts to ensure that my students really understood what they were doing.  The last two weeks have been so great because we have spent that time going BEYOND the SCOS and exploring other connections.  Today I was just giddy with excitement as I watched all the little light bulbs flicker above everyone's heads.  I then shared why I was so excited.  Do my kids think I'm weird?  Definitely, but that was a foregone conclusion without today's behavior.  Did I demonstrate to them a passion and excitement for learning?  Most definitely/.  Did some of them experience that for themselves?  I gotta say yes.

Today was a great day.

What I learned about grading by working retail

It's been a really long time since I've blogged or tweeted, like almost six months.  Thanks to both of you who missed me.  Part of the reason is I've been working a second part time job for a major electronics retailer.  State budget cuts and frozen salaries combined with a continually rising cost of living have made this a necessity.

Like any retailer, the holidays are a major source of revenue.  In my particular department, we make somewhere in the neighborhood of two-thirds of our annual revenue between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Black Friday is a big deal for us.  I sold a lot of stuff that day.

I am not paid on commission but my personal sales are tracked.  On Black Friday, each person in the department had an assigned goal of approximately $30,000 in sales.  Keep in mind I'm not selling cars but consumer electronics.  That's a pretty high goal.  On the following Monday I checked our tracking system to see my totals.  To be honest I was pretty excited to see just how much I sold.  Due to a glitch in programming, not all the data was properly assigned.  In my own estimation I knew I had exceeded the goals for all three days of Black Friday weekend, but nothing was there to show it.  I was bummed.  Despite knowing I do not receive any commission or special recognition for my individual sales, I wanted to know.  Then I had one of those "oh great wise one share your wisdom with me" moments of clarity - this is how my students feel about grades.

This is my second year using a standards based grading system.  Assignments receive a score between 1 and 4, depending on the level of mastery they have shown.  At the end of the grading period I conference with each student and we assign a similar score for their overall progress.  I then convert this to a typical 100 point based grade to satisfy local requirements.  I tracked with my students from 6th grade to 7th so this system is nothing new.  However, this year I'm teaching math, a tested subject.  The kids don't really care about grades but their parents do.  Every time I send home a progress report with ones, twos, threes, and fours I have to answer the question, "What's my child's grade?"  These numbers are important because so many people measure everything by them.

So, what exactly did I learn about grading from working retail?

• despite the lofty ideals of working /learning for the sake of simply doing so, we all want to see some fruit for our efforts
• when you are being assessed on your work/learning, everyone wants it to be a meaningful assessment.  Don't just give me a set of exercises to do, connect them to something.  Do they really assess my learning OR my ability to recreate rote tasks?

The task for me now is to find a way to address and apply both of these lessons.  What suggestions do you have?

Stop the Bus!

After reading Joe Bower's post on covering the curriculum, I find myself conjuring up images of Eddie Murphy and his stand up routine where he talked about chasing the ice cream truck, screaming "ICE CREAM!" at the top of his lungs.  Only I'm yelling "STOP THE BUS!" and I'm the bus driver.  Not quite six weeks into the school year, and I have to figure out what I'm going to do about my route.

You see, clearly, a large portion of my students have failed to learn some key concepts.  With such a large number, the obvious answer is to reteach it.  But how many times?  Do I stop the bus or simply slow it down and leave the door open, hoping the kids will be able to jump on with minimal injury?  How do I use RtI?  Can it be the back up transportation plan or just an excuse I use to not stop the bus?

My heart says stop the bus.  My brain says stop the bus.  At least part of my brain does.  The other part sees the standard course of study mandated by the state.  That same part of my brain sees learning goals like the one prompting this post and thinks they SHOULD HAVE been learned before this year anyway.  Do I keep 80% of the kids from their destination because 20% are too slow?  How do I drive several different busses at once?

It really is a no-brainer - the bus HAS to be stopped.  But it is SOOOOO much easier to say than do.

Embracing Uncertainty, part 1

In The Future of Management, author Gary Hamel argues that one of the reasons leading companies and corporations fall to the back of the pack is not so much the incompetence of its leaders but the "frantically accelerating pace of change" (p42) that is to blame.  They will eventually adapt, but only after it is too late and they have fallen behind.  This idea triggered an "A-HA!" for me regarding our current educational system.  Now I realize this is not a new insight - others have called attention to it before ("Shift Happens" among others).  My a-ha was more in the form of "most of my colleagues are ill equipped to handle the rate of change, regardless of any other philosophical beliefs they may have."  I began to feel a burden that perhaps is now part of my responsibility to assist them in this area.

Since graduating from college twenty years ago, I have worked in what I believe are the two industries that rank first and second on the "resistant to change" scale - the church and education.  I won't deal with church issues here - I have another seriously neglected blog for those matters.  Just because our environments are averse to change does not mean change won't come a knockin'.  In fact, the rapid rate of change hits every year with a new set of directions and I keep hearing, "So much has changed.  Can't we just keep something the same for more than a year?"

I asked for help identifying resources that might help teachers deal with this rapid pace of change.

anyone out there blogged or read anything re: helping tchrs adapt to rapid speed of change in society? looking for thoughts besides my ownWed Aug 04 03:37:46 via TweetDeckmatt guthrie
mattguthrie

(I'm still looking for input by the way!)  I was eventually directed here, an interview with Alexandra Michel and Stanton Wortham.  The first two clips are the best, though I would recommend them all.  Be sure to check them out.

It's ironic how, according to Michel and Wortham, all the methods we employ to minimize change actually work to minimize our ability to deal with even minor change.  Curriculum is standardardized.  Assessments are standardized.  Lesson plans and PLC's are becoming standardized to the point that you can actually purchase scripted lessons.  This trend weakens our skills as educators.  It causes us to create students who are no longer learners (processors of information) but regurgitators of facts.

So, back to my initial question - how do we help our colleagues deal with this rapid rate of change?  If Michel and Wortham are correct, we need to embrace uncertainty.  We need to remove the routines from our classrooms and our schools.  Am I advocating chaos?  Maybe, but only to a small degree. You should see my sock drawer.  

I think an easy way to begin is really implementing the idea of PLC's and data analysis to their ultimate theoretical ends.  Instead of me teaching EVERY math objective to all my classes and my colleagues doing likewise, let's split up the topics.  I'll teach linear functions to ALL the classes and Mrs. Jones will teach factoring polynomials, etc.  This will require us to alter the sequencing of topics.  In fact, we may need a different sequence every year if we let the data decide.  It becomes "planned" uncertainty, which is a small step.

Can teachers handle this lack of consistency?  Of course they can.  They are professionals who are knowledgeable of the content right?  Does order matter that much?

I have another way to help teachers embrace uncertainty though it would be quite unpopular with many and unenforceable anyway - forbid the recycling of lesson plans.  A better solution would be to report X number of new things you have done during your annual review.  Hamel details how Whirlpool Corporation began a five year quest to create a culture of innovation.  Part of that process was requiring divisions to report the number of innovations and percentage of income derived from them.  Teachers could do this very easily.  Instead of making it a burdensome requirement, it could be touted as, "Share with me the awesome new things you tried that you are proud of.  How did they turn out?"

I have some ideas about how to change the type of student we are creating.  That can be for part 2.  For now, I would like to hear your thoughts on this issue and how you are helping your colleagues embrace uncertainty.

Curriculum - Part 2 of "Does it really matter?"

Please, please, please comment on this post if you disagree or agree in any way.  This post is a work in progress as I process my thoughts on important issues like curriculum.  As I mentioned in part of "Does it really matter?" I am teaching earth science this summer.  I hate to admit this, but I can't think of a single good reason for kids to take this class.  When I examine the standard course of study (SCOS), there is not a single item that will ever be used again in their lives unless they enter a very specific career.

So on the first day, I'm looking at the class of students who are repeating the course and I'm trying to find an answer to the unasked question, "When am I EVER going to use this?"  There is always the standard answer of you will develop thinking skills that will used in other areas of your but honestly, that's a load of manure.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm all about learning something for the sake of learning it.  I love talking rocks, minerals, soil, weather, plate tectonics, etc. and how all these things are intricately linked together in systemic ways.  I teach with enthusiasm and passion about how cool all the connections are.  I look for real world, current events to illustrate each concept.  And students enjoy my class. . . . because I'm entertaining.

I know it is a bit idealistic to ask repeaters, especially those with historic problems in school, to suddenly become passionate about all this.  I don't expect them too.  I see my four and half this summer as an attempt to plant a seed, light a spark, redirect the ship only a single degree in order to avoid disaster . . .

All of this leads me to some serious thoughts about the place of curriculum.  Why have we dictated the courses a student must pass in order to earn a high school diploma?  What is the process whereby we determined A, B, and C must be mastered in order to move from middle to high school?

Here in NC, our State Board of Education has adopted a new set of guidelines for freshmen who entered high school this past year.  It's called the "Future Ready Core".  Besides requiring earth/environmental science, students must pass algebra 1 and 2, geometry, and a fourth math that is tailored to their post high school paths.  Excuse me for a moment, but as a math teacher, why would I require a future plumber or diesel mechanic (who make very good money by the way and are still much in need) need algebra 2?  What math do they they take next in the sequence?

I realize that my post is losing its coherency to singular topic because I'm beginning to move into rant mode.  So I'll wrap it up with a few questions that will perhaps frame it all for me.
- What is the purpose of school?
- Which is more important, content or skills?
- Why are trying to force everyone onto a college track?
- If high school is supposed to preparation for real life, shouldn't there be a little more freedom in the requirements?

Again, I state my plea.  Please comment because I'm really wondering if it matters.

Access for Everyone

It's Sunday night and eyes all around the world are focused on the Super Bowl.  Quite a few members of my PLN are working steadily on sending out links and resources via Twitter with one eye on the game and providing updates on their favorite commercials.  I'm no different, except now I find myself preparing the pre-game show for Tuesday night's #edchat.  I regret that class will keep me from participating Tuesday night, but I want to express some of my thoughts now anyway.


One of the topics in this week's #edchat poll is How can we guarantee equitable access and use of technology to ensure tech literacy and to support meaningful learning for all students?  In my opinion this issue itself should drive the need for classroom instruction embedded with technology more than the workforce's need for 21st Century workers.  Why would I say such a thing?  I'm glad you asked.  If you do not embed technology in your instruction, many of your students will NEVER, I repeat, NEVER, get exposure to, much less develop skills with, the technology.


Now for a disclaimer.  I realize that I may have initially misinterpreted the question.  My first reaction was to read this question in terms of economic access in the home setting, i.e. outside of school.  Shelly Blake-Plock  (aka R. Richard Wojewodzki) has begun quite an interesting conversation about this over at TeachPaperless.  That is certainly an issue worth debating, but that's not my task for this post.  Upon further reflection, I think the intent of the question relates more to equitable access WITHIN the school, not outside of it.  That also is an issue in this day of limited resources.


Regardless of how one interprets the question, I think the answer lies in the notion of embedded instruction.  Yes, I'm using that term again.  Most of the people who will read this post will agree that the use of technology in the classroom should be transparent, or unseen, because it is a natural part of what happens there.  Technology is not just a game day in the lab or special art project on the laptops or our once-a-month-do-something with the iPods.  It is used as an appropriate tool for the task at hand.  So, how do we make that happen?


First, appropriation of funds have to change.  Our county took a 90% budget cut this school year in our technology funding because of the state government's own economic woes.  That's screwed up thinking.  Technology should not be a line item.  It should be part of instructional and curricular materials.  As a side note, there is rumor we will delay updating and changing the standard course of study because we cannot afford to buy new textbooks.  Another example of misguided thinking - textbooks (and their publi$her$) should not drive curriculum changes.  

Aaron Eyler has written an excellent post about how we could rework our budgets to begin to bring more technology into the schools.  I don't think his proposal is all that crazy.  Here are my ideas. This is a pic of a mini laptop cart that was put together by our tech facilitator.  Total cost:  about $2700.  You might could do it cheaper - our district quote sheet is lame.  Get one for every class.  Quit buying new textbooks every time the standard course of study changes.  Find a good solid text with the essentials in it and purchase a classroom set.


Will every class need the same amount of technology?  It should need some, even the PE teachers. My friend David Hines uses a wiki with his weight training class.  At the risk of sounding elitist or trying to make the rich richer, outfit those who already use the technology first.  Tell the others their cart is coming and in the meantime get them trained and get them using it.  At a local high school the principal gave an LCD projector to every teacher who took the Intel Teaching Essentials class.  Amazingly, he had almost 100% participation.


In terms of training, provide REAL professional development.  Don't bring in someone with a cookie cutter approach that demos all the Gee Whiz features of their product.  Have real live actual teachers show how things can be embedded (there's that word again).  Have math teacher share with math teachers, science teachers with science teachers, etc.  Provide a demo at every faculty meeting so teachers can see examples from other content areas and cross pollination can occur.


I go back to the need.  One-third of my students do not even own a computer at home.  Roughly ten percent were unable to process simple tasks like sign on to their school provided email address, change their passwords, etc. at the beginning of the year.  If I (and I mean I- not many others are providing that opportunity) do not provide access to the technology, these students will never touch a computer, or an iPod, or whatever gizmo we use.  Whether we like it or not, schools have become the guardian of civilization.  We have access to the students.  Let's give them access to the tools.

Does curriculum need to go on a diet? A follow-up to #edchat

As expected, tonight's #edchat was not disappointing as we talked about how to deal with an overloaded curriculum.  It was as fast and furious as ever.  There are some things I'm sure I missed and probably will miss even after reviewing the archive dozens of times.  After trying to pre-load the discussion earlier, I came away with even more questions and ideas tonight.  These are the ones that were most impactful to me.

At the risk of sounding like a traitor, sometimes I wonder how many times we as teachers are responsible for our own problems?  A lot of discussion centered around teaching standards, not long lists of content.  Out of curiosity, I ran the North Carolina Standard Course of Study for sixth grade science through Wordle and was surprised at the results, particularly the prominence of the higher order verbs "analyze" and "evaluate".  Of course there is the possibility of the curriculum writers covering themselves to look good.  For the sake of argument, let's say that is the case.  If the "official" curriculum is stated this way, the teacher now has plenty of freedom on how she or he teaches the course.  We just don't do it.

Let's look at a different curriculum such as math.  I'm also a math teacher and math always seem to stand as the exception to the possibilities.  Math tends to be skilled based, at least for K-8.  Doing the same thing as with the science curriculum, the results are dramatically different.  It's hard to find the verbs.  When you do, they are lower level.  Waldo is easier to find than the verb "analyze".  Two dynamics are at work here.  One, math is just a different beast.  Two, maybe it's not as rigorous as we'd like to believe.  HOWEVER, I do think that it is possible to weave the goals and strands in such a way as to cover concepts that are demonstrated by all the skills we worry about being on the end of year test.

Another common error we make as teachers is confusing curriculum with the textbook table of contents.  Textbooks are even more arbitrary than curriculum is.  This fallacy is not as common as it once was because of district imposed pacing guides.  Now the pacing guide becomes the curriculum impostor.  As someone said tonight, it's interesting that we are told to focus on higher level thinking skills with particular concepts that are given one day on the pacing guide.  How one should deal with the pacing guide is a more delicate matter.  It is largely dependent on your school and/or district admin.  For some the consequences can be quite severe if the  pacing guide is not strictly followed.  That's a sad indictment on the state of education.

Moving away from condemning ourselves, another very important point was made tonight.  Content cannot be thrown out.  Even if a conceptual framework is going to drive future curriculum development, then it is still permissible to select particular content to teach those concepts.  Someone else noted that there are some important content pieces that are being cut out, perhaps wrongly so.  The example given was the Holocaust.  Of course, these will always be subjective judgments.

After tonight, I'm not as dismayed about the future as some.  Despite what the talking heads and policy makers tell us, I think we can make it work as the folks on the front line.  What do you think?