A homework precedent

An interesting article from Calgary...

Ensuring Students Learn What They Need?

Hmmm, isn't that what we always do? I thought that was my biggest source of anxiety for the last 18 years.

I don't think we can ensure (as in, make certain that (something) shall occur or be the case) that our students ever learn everything we think they need to learn. In regards to technology, that is also the case. We can, however, get as close as we possibly can to that goal with a two-pronged strategy.

With a vision for how technology is best used, we approach a point at which the majority of teachers are ready to buy in. Some teachers will always be hesitant to embrace new methods, be they technological or philosophical (or both), because of the many competing demands on time. When we develop a vision for the ways in which technology should be part of our academic lives, teachers are more more willing to jump in and take the time to integrate and master digital tools.

I emphasize the word ways to differentiate between that and specific tools. I have a(n evolving) vision of the place technology should occupy in my pedagogy. In addition to being a hugely powerful source of information, I see it as a means of expression and collaboration first and foremost and, secondarily, as a an archive/portfolio of student work. I believe the tools allow my students to express ideas in new ways to broader audiences and to collaborate with people beyond the confines of the classroom. They can and should now apply what they learn to more realistic problems and situations. Because I have a vision, I am comfortable bringing different digital tools into my pedagogy.

The second 'prong' to ensuring our students learn what they need re technology and information literacy is to weave technology into the fabric of a school. Across grade levels and across the different curricular areas, technology needs to be diffused throughout an institution rather than compartmentalized.

This is my personal philosophy, and it informs all that I do in my teaching. That said, I know that the the most important thing our students NEED to learn is HOW TO LEARN. Technology and information literacy are only part of learning how to learn. Good teaching leads to learning - content, skills and the habits of mind that create real learners. Computers, hand-helds, whatever device that may come our way are not pre-requisites for learning or success.

Irony

As we watch the very idea of political debate in the United States devolve into theatrics and anarchy, we work patiently to develop the skill here at ISB. As teachers we search out appropriate research texts, and we guide students to find additional information independently. We create opportunities for our students to work collaboratively to identify key information and synthesize that into cogent arguments. We help them develop the confidence and poise to give voice to those arguments in a reasonable but impassioned way.

Simultaneously, in the world's most influential country (whether I like it or not, it is), in the country which the largest number of our students identify as home, the Super Bowl of Freedom shapes the 'debate' on one of the most important pieces of legislation in the country's history. For the first time, I hope my students don't watch/read the news.

NETs and AASLs

Just as reading is woven into every strand of a students' education, so should the skills related to digital literacy. In our Humanities team TOG, for example, we decided to focus on developing student skills in reading non-fiction. We found, through data and observation, that our students often had difficulty identifying key information, limiting their comprehension of non-fiction texts.

In our student-led conferences Grade 6 core teachers are together. My math and science counterpart and I shared many of the same insights into student progress/future growth because the skills we discussed were not limited to our specific curricular area; they run through the curricula of each subject area.

The NETs and AASLs are similar. The standards they set out cannot become the responsibility of a specific department or grade level. They need to be interwoven not because they are specific skills but because they are means of expression of ideas and tools for analysis. We cannot compartmentalize expression of ideas as the responsibility of any particular teacher.

As a starting point for discussion, however, the question of who's job it should be does not seem to be a good starting point for discussion. We are all doing this already. The issue for all of is how we effectively teach those standards.

Final Project Reflection: 18 October 2009

My final project grew out of our (coetail) work doing digital storytelling and the Grade 6 Archaeology unit. As part of the unit, we do a week long dig in the classroom. With the help of ISB support staff, we turn the Humanities classrooms into dig sites. We bury a diverse range of artifacts in two giant sand boxes in the classrooms to re-create two villages or homes.

Each site contains a variety of 'domestic' artifacts relating to cooking, hunting/defence, religion, commerce and art. Students participate in the dig in rotating jobs, including digging, sifting, cataloguing and recording. Each day's dig is preceded and followed by a discussion and analysis of the finds. Emphasis is on forming a cohesive theory about the previous 'inhabitants' of the site, their way of life and culture. The theory must be based on the evidence and teachers frequently ask, "Why do you think that?" in order to force students to explain their rationale for their opinion.

This habit of mind (0f using evidence to support an opinion) is one of the primary goals of the grade 6 curriculum and the dig provides a unique opportunity to make 'discoveries' and articulate a point of view based upon them. Students often have differing points of view, but, despite that, often see commonalities in their interpretations of individual artifacts. As they discuss, they find out where they differ and endeavour to explain why they, personally, are right.

The dig traditionally culminates with a common assignment/assessment of a magazine-style article about an aspect of the dig. Students choose from a variety of article formats that tell the story of the people who inhabited the site and/or the story of the dig itself. During the dig, students take still photos and (this year I asked them to include) video to document the progress and process of the dig. During the digital storytelling part of our course I realized I could combine the video and stills to articulate many of the same ideas and complement the article.

The digital storytelling/film-making assignment allows students to collaborate with each other to meet many of the same goals as the magazine assignment. The collaborative aspect is particularly appealing because it puts students in a situation in which they once again have to discuss and defend their opinions. As they write their scripts for the project, they refine their opinions and learn to express them concisely. Most importantly they automatically use evidence to support their viewpoint in the form of the audiovisual images from the dig. This step reinforces their thinking process. My final project is a sample/model assignment for students.

Screencast It!

Screen casts lend themselves to any 'procedural' instructions for computer use in the classroom. As a language teacher whose goal is to use the target language as much as possible in during class time, this is particularly appealing. Demonstrating how to do something on the computer while using Spanish is incredibly difficult for students to follow. Even with the smartboard and a physical demonstration, it is very rare that more than half the class remembers the steps necessary to complete a task. A screen cast, however, allows students to view instructions at their own pace multiple times. This is an incalculably huge advantage.

Even without the language aspect of the Spanish classroom, I can't begin to count the number of times of times I have been pulled away from, for example, helping a student improve their writing in order to help a student upload a photo/save to the server/record audio etc. With a library of clips (time to compile one) explaining the common 'hows' on my blog, I would be able to focus on core learning.

The best part of this would be increased independence on the part of students. There are already many questions I don't answer but instead direct students to answer themselves by reading classroom text. Referring them to screen casts would be another step on the same path to independent resolution of simple problems. There is nothing so gratifying as watching a student figure out how to answer his/her own questions.

Finally, at many points in the K-12 curricula, we ask students to engage in procedural writing. Screen casting is an excellent opportunity to integrate procedural writing and technology use. Throw in a video camera and a student could do a screen cast of just about anything. The visual aspect of a screen cast would ensure that students do not leave out key steps in their explanations (something they inevitably do when they write).

7 October 2009: The Explosion of Video

The availability of video has indeed exploded. Just the venues of finding videos are hard to keep track of, let alone the videos themselves.

It seems that, with a bit of patience, one can find just about anything needed for the classroom. A perfect example is an old resource the Grade 6 team has used in the past - The Voyage of the Mimi. Originally an old PBS show (Ben Affleck way back in the 1980s) about archaeology, the school purchased a copy on VHS back in the day. As VHS players became scarce, the tapes were transferred to disc but with poor quality. When we discussed it in our team meeting I looked it up on youtube and, not surprisingly, someone has uploaded just about every episode.

Because of the web, the Mimi (and tons of other potential resources) are available world wide. What's more, with a bit of effort I can get my very own copy of the video by kicking or zamzaring. This is usually the case for just about any curricular idea. The challenge may be coming up with the perfect search query (or wading through tons of annoying video) but the material is out there.

Perhaps most importantly, as teachers we can easily capture moments, speeches, events etc. for classroom discussion and analysis. We can view them repeatedly without a whole other intermediary device other than the one already on our desks. Most importantly we can USE those same things to create something new. Converted to .mov format, students can import video clips, add audio tracks, additional footage, subtitles to become story-tellers or documentarians.

The web also gives the opportunity to share work with a global audience. It can be shared for evaluation, for an audience or for collaboration. The biggest obstacle to this kind of work is time and tools. Working with video is, to my mind, still the most cumbersome technology related task in education. Anyone who can streamline that process will be a hero to millions.