Left Lane Ends

Radio Lab is by FAR my favorite thing to listen to on our local public radio station. Unlike any other broadcasted program I have ever listened to, it comes off like a conversation might happen in my mind. Sounds are layered on top of the concepts that are being discussed, intriguing repetition is embedded into the show and my attention is simply captured (NOT an easy task). There is always an over arcing theme, but that constant is paralleled with a feeling of natural, random conversation. Detective Stories, show #201, was a favorite of mine with the following description giving you a glimpse at the design of the show:

Forensics, archeology, genealogy, and genetics are devoted to figuring out what really happened. In this hour, we hear surprising stories of playing detective and finding that what really happened in the past is not at all what you’d expected. We start at a trash dump in Egypt, where we find Jesus, Satan, sissies, and porn. Next, the mystery of why hundreds of old letters written to the same woman were discovered on the side of Route 101. And lastly, a blood sampling tour of Asia reveals a prolific baby-maker and potentially a world conqueror.

Wrapping your mind around the concept of how mine functions is not the easiest thing for me to communicate/conceptualize. The best way to describe it, I guess, is through the example of this CMAP Mind Mapping software. You see, I HATE taking notes. The only time I have EVER taken notes is when I knew I’d get in trouble if I didn’t. So the first time I used this software, I was blown away. I could visually see the concepts and how they connected to one another, concepts were noted in brief and reviewing the content the next day/week actually helped. I realized that this visual representation of concepts and their connections was a pretty good parallel to how my mind (and conversations in my mind) work. For me, Radio Lab takes that visual and turns it into audio format.

As I tossed around what makes this broadcast so effective, I ran across a post on Crucial Thought (a while back) titled ‘Do we pay enough attention to conversation?’. A sixth grade language teacher, Christopher Craft reflects on his observation at a university campus:

Not only did students not talk to one another following class time, they all pulled out cell phones and began dialing. This blew me away!

They wanted familiar connections, not new ones.

They wanted connections made in the context of fun, not class.

They didn’t want to connect with me.

I’m a talker. I love to have long conversations where both parties get to wax rhetoric about deeply philosophical topics, ranging anywhere from existentialism to education. Nothing lights up my day like a conversation with someone who challenges my thinking. I like it when my thinking is rocked, because it either changes or is strengthened.

I, too, love conversation. Exchanging and interchanging ideas is just flat out fun and I think it can be a driving catalyst in our classrooms. Radio Lab models that conversation so well (and in a way that starts my mind rolling) - to the point that I want to continue the conversation with others. I guess while I see digital tools as having the potential to isolate, I also see the huge potential for them to open up doors, experiences and conversation for our students. Whether it is a lesson in class or pointing our students to a Radio Lab broadcast that strikes a small spark, we just have to trigger the conversation that opens the door for their engagement.

I would be remiss to not mention the way that the Academy of Irving ISD has laid out their campus training the week before school starts. I’ve seen so many of these weeks that are ineffective that it is actually not funny. Time wasted, teachers with eyes glazed over and sessions that are so lacking in focus that not even an appropriate prescription can provide a reasonable fix.

Angela Stevens, ITS at the Academy writes:

Last week I ranted a bit (and a little bit more) about some of the recent staff development sessions I participated in (and by participate I mean sat through), so when planning our campus days I wanted to do just the opposite.

When planning staff development I think it is important to collaborate with others, get various perspectives, give participants choices and allow participants time to work hands-on, discuss and reflect — so, this is what we had in mind when laying out our staff development framework. We decided to use a wiki again because we got such positive feedback from our new teacher training.

I had the chance to drop by briefly and had hoped to grab a little bit of footage - only to get pulled away by blood borne pathogens (figure THAT out without context!). Needless to say, I would encourage you to check out the wiki that they created, browse the content and see what you think about this campus created staff development. Ineffective staff development REALLY irritates me, so it is refreshing to see it done well.

Vicki writes (and gave me a smile in the process):

I think teachers who waste time at the beginning of class don’t take their job seriously. (I say start quickly, get it done, and then enjoy the teachable moments at the end of class. But if you’re stressing about getting your objectives done at the end of the class, you miss the valuable time at the end when you really have breakthroughs with your students.)

This is a great line that, I believe, can apply to more than just our classrooms. Hit it hard, hit it fast. Focus on the content and the discipline becomes a non-issue. Focus on quality teaching and engagement will follow. Just start quickly.

Darren Wilson and I recently presented a session on Inspired Classrooms at the Texas Computer Education Convention (see my post below about the conference and/or read a brief review of our session). Towards the end of the presentation and during the time for questions, it was asked if we had any research to prove that Inspired Classrooms is correlated with an increase in test scores. Oh, SNAP. No you di’n't!

Folks, a computer is just a tool. That’s it! It isn’t magical, it doesn’t make people smarter or dumber and it sure as hell does not, in and of itself, increase standardized test scores! Beyond that whole thorn in my side, I am FLAT OUT TIRED of the Potemkin village that is ‘research based decision making’. But, I get ahead of myself. (BTW, I first heard the phrase ‘Potemkin village’ from Bernie Dodge. It creates such great imagery, and you might enjoy his quick post that describes his application of the word)
Let’s come back to the pencil. The pencil, according to Wikipedia:

The archetypal pencil may have been the ancient Roman stylus, which was a thin metal stick, often made of lead and used for scratching on papyrus. The word pencil comes from the Latin word penicillus which means “little tail.”

Some time prior to 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), an enormous deposit of graphite was discovered at the site of Seathwaite Fell near Borrowdale, Cumbria, England. The locals found that it was very useful for marking sheep.

WHAT?! Marking sheep? Ahh… the irony. But, let’s continue - lest I get sidetracked down a different road.
This is my standard response to those that go and throw the question of laptop/computer research in my face:

‘The pencil is a tool, just like the computer is a tool. Just because a student receives a pencil to use in class, does not mean that they will score higher on a standardized test. Granted, they will be able to TAKE the test, but their score will only be impacted by the learning processes that they undergo while at home and at school. The same holds true for a laptop. It has no ‘provable’ impact on student achievement, only the teacher and how he/she teaches will do that. The difference that the laptop/computer offers (as a tool in a classroom) is that a teacher can now design LESSONS where students can output products never before imaginable, where students can locate information never before accessible and where students can develop social networks of knowledge never before possible. BUT, it isn’t the laptop that does that - it all comes down to HOW the laptop is used. It all comes down to the teaching.’

If it all comes down to (imagine this)… …THE TEACHING, then surely there is research out there that shows that TEACHING BETTER equates to HIGHER TEST SCORES. Now, I know by this point that you are shaking in your boots with anticipation that such a revelation may be, well, REVEALED to you - and I do not plan on letting you down! There is actually a little bit of quality research out there that does support the notion that teaching better DOES increase test scores. Take this excerpt, for example:

In data validated unanimously by the Program Evaluation Panel of the National Diffusion Network, HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills Program) students achieved spring to spring gains on standardized test scores that were 67% higher in reading and 123% higher in mathematics than national averages. These results were generated with an earlier, less refined version of the model. Second-year gains were also greater than national averages. These continued gains indicate that the results were not Hawthorne effects. Since then, we have not been able to do another systematic study, but schools are now reporting results that substantially exceed the best gains reported in the earlier study. Students in one site gained 5.6 years on the Stanford Diagnostic Reading test (fall to spring) in the first year, and 20% of the 5th and 6th grade Chapter 1 students posttested beyond the high school level. Tapes of these students reveal them to be highly articulate and sophisticated learners, an indication that the extent of the gains was not a statistical fluke. (1992, p. 88)

By now, I expect that you are standing, applauding and nodding your head while you continue to read. Please keep doing so - the standing ovation, that is, and while you continue to applaude, I would like you to consider the major point of that excerpt - teaching ‘better‘ means teaching kids to THINK. Teaching kids to think, means designing lessons that move students up through ALL of the different levels of Blooms Taxonomy. Designing lessons at ALL levels in Blooms Taxonomy is what we believe Inspired Classrooms should be all about - and the computer as a tool in that environment is simply an enabler, or catalyst, for a teacher who is GOOD at teaching. So, stop asking the wrong questions, and start asking the right one. It is a simple question, really:

‘How do we teach more effectively?’

While there is a plethora of research out there on the topic above, I feel the need to make you aware of one final thorn in my side: ‘Research based decision making’ has been to the education world what ‘Inside Edition‘ or ‘E! TV‘ is to pop culture - a shallow way to justify popular fetishes at the state, regional and local levels. There, I said it. Growing up with a father who taught Statistics (picture me as a 4th grader getting upset with my teachers for not knowing what APA was), I feel comfortable looking at published research and making a decision as to what is good and what is not. Even with good research, it is more than easy to make it say what you want it to say (after all, I found the above research excerpt in just around a minute or so!). Far too often, I see decisions made, and then the research is found to support it, OR the ‘research’ that led to the decision is nothing close to valid (in the news, at the state/local educational levels, etc). Be wise in your quest and let us throw in the unimaginable as we make our selves better teachers in this world today: common sense. When we combine common sense with qualified and validated research, it is easy to realize what is best for kids - when are we going to do it?

I must say that I was pleased with my response to the person that posed the question at the end of our presentation. Darren told me that I did a nice job of withholding the sarcasm that you may/may not have felt from the above. I did, however, hold my ground and tell that person that asking for research to prove the effectiveness of computers in the classroom is the wrong question to ask. Next time, I’ll be sure to have an arsenal of research at the ready that does support quality teaching, which is what I want to see in both Inspired Classrooms and 1:1 laptop programs. Until then, I wait with baited breath…

Well, it appears that I am becoming all too familiar with the ‘rant’ writing style these days, which may be a clue to a variety of things. Never-the-less: DO NOT take the pop culture interstate as you journey through life and through teaching others. It is boring, filled with predictability and gives you no way of getting out into the exciting places where the left lane ends.

OH - AND DON’T GO THROWING LAPTOP RESEARCH IN MY FACE!!!

(are you looking for a good tool that cross references Bloom’s Taxonomy with Technology Integration? Check out LoTI.)

Don’t you think we have ENOUGH problems in education as it is? Our textbook companies don’t, and I doubt they care. This isn’t news to me - I’ve never had a positive view on these political and financial powerhouses. BUT. I’m reviewing different options tonight for our upcoming Math adoption and just had to share my experiences. I’ll share it in three stories:

Story number one (1):

I started my merri-go-round sampling with a presentation by McDougal Littell. This was what you might consider a standard sales pitch, one that wasn’t super flashy but was fairly well put together. The pace of the presentation didn’t make we dizzy and I had time to reflect on what the company was offering. As the session progressed (I walked in a little late), my eyes began to open. I began realizing that textbook companies have started to ‘get it’. They are now at a point where they ‘get’ what technology can do for them! (beware - the next sentence is long and meant to be said in one breath) It can SELL more books and grab a little bit more out of that state pot of money that is just sitting there waiting for the next sucker of a district to sign the papers which allow the big corporations (that have very little real interest in the state of our education system!!!!!!) to snatch a little more money because they convinced a teacher that THEY, lowly little teacher that they may be, will get a PEN DRIVE if they vote for this adoption. And not ONLY do they get a pen drive, but EVERY campus will receive software that will PRINT A TEST ON PAPER and a scanner that will scan those paper tests and GRADE THEM FOR THE TEACHERS! THIS, my friends, is the point where I began biting a hole in my right cheek, and not just one of those little nibble, nibble holes… a FULL OUT hole in my right cheek! While I understand that this might be really beneficial to some districts out there, I truly believe that benefiting education is not the purpose of putting these gimmicks into the textbook packages. The content is the same ‘ole stuff - except it now has TAKS questions on each page so that we can further bore our students even faster than we do now.

Story number two (2):

I swear, if I had any used cars to sell or needed a salesman for my crappy used car lot down the street - I would have IMMEDIATELY hired this guy to do the job. I popped into a packed room of math teachers who were anxiously waiting for the next words to come out of this Prentice Hall’s presenters mouth. In fact, I didn’t really know if I was in a Prentice Hall presentation as I saw eInstruction clickers distributed around the room. I seriously thought I stepped into a third party sales pitch on using these units in a math classroom. No worries, though, folks - it was definitely full out Prentice Hall. Keeping in mind that I had already had my eyes opened to the fact that these companies are simply using technology to sell their product, I thought I was ready for mentally handling the next presentation without delving down into my inner sanctum of sarcasm. Then my shoulders slumped and my face shrunk into a dis-connected, furrowed brow mask. You see, not only was this presenter pushing the gimmicks, but his ENTIRE presentation was about the gimmicks! He didn’t delve into the textbook (aside from the quick excerpts flashed across the screen) and said NOTHING (I think I broke a few keys typing that word) about the actual content of the material. WHAT?!?! Teachers that I KNOW do not use technology on anywhere CLOSE to a regular basis were CHEERING for the clickers that did the assessments for them! We have MORE THAN ONE SYSTEM IN OUR DISTRICT THAT AUTOMATICALLY GRADES ASSESSMENTS (have had for more than 5 years now) AND THESE PEOPLE WERE CHEERING! Oh, and it was all aligned to TAKS … how on earth could I leave that part out? I couldn’t resist jotting down a quote: ‘You don’t ever have to worry about going a day without the students practicing for TAKS.’ Oh thank the supreme diety for THAT one. It was in this session that I realized the next point I would learn tonight: We’re in trouble. We’re in trouble because the textbook companies are demonstrating to the political powers in Austin that they are using technology to do worksheets and TAKS practice on line - and Austin WILL fall for it. We are further in trouble because our teachers will adopt this company’s book (I can almost guarantee it… I’ll post when they do) and think that this kind of gimmick technology integration is the end-all/be-all. Ouch. I may just go grab one of those crappy used cars off my lot down the street and drive it off a cliff - that is if Mr. Prentice Hall hasn’t sold it first.

Story number three (3): 

By this time I’m beat down. I have a hole bitten in both my right and left cheeks, have pondered driving a car off of a cliff and look … well, just plain haggard. Surely, this last publisher will have SOMEthing reasonable to offer - right? The last spin on my merri-go-round adventure is with Thomson Learning. I should probably preface this by saying how much I do NOT like sales people. Too often, they do not know their product, are boring to listen to, don’t even have a product worth listening to, aren’t engaging and care only about the sale. Unfortunately, this guy did NOT know his product, was boring as heck to listen to (READ THE DANG SLIDE SHOW!), couldn’t show that his product was worthy, had a non-engaging PowerPoint with mainly a white background and a bunch of black text in Arial font, and … well, I didn’t stick around long enough to hear if he only cared about the sale. My job, as I am in Instructional Technology, was to find out the positives and negatives about the technology offered components from each company. You know, does the company offer an electronic copy of their book? Nope. Ok then, I’ll check THAT off my list. Does the company offer an assessment bank? Well, I can print Word .doc’s with Thompson to hand out to my kids. Yeah, right. Check. Does the company offer engaging content? Their included PowerPoint’s used a standard Microsoft Template. *sigh*. And, check. The third lesson of the night? Once you get your questions answered, don’t give your time to someone who isn’t on a path to help kids in your district learn in a more effective and engaging way. I was really a bit baffled - how does this big company not ‘get it’ (you know, get the fact that technology gimmicks can sell their product)?? Thompson may not have turned me off in the same way that the other two did, but they came nowhere close to impressing me with what they offered.

So, my venting comes to a close. To recap, I learned three very important things tonight:

1. Big textbook companies are finally ‘getting it’ in regards to technology. They ‘get’ gimmicky technology add-ons will woo teachers and sell more of their product
2. Big textbook companies are fooling the political powers that they are leading the path in technology integration … with gimmicky technology add-ons.
3. The ones that don’t ‘get it’ yet are nowhere close to where we need them to be and will sooner or later get on board with the rest of the technology gimmick train.

I’ve never seen a textbook presentation that focused solely around the technology components that it offered and not around the content of the book. These companies have too much control in the content that our kids are fed to be scamming teachers into thinking they are doing the right thing with technology integration into their classrooms.

And folks, that gimmicky integration ain’t nowhere close to where the Left Lane Ends.

Teaching is always new to me, and I am continually fascinated by my students’ creativity and learning. The opportunity to empower my students through thier involvement in community issues, and to help them find relevance in history by connecting it to today interests me; mixing this with new technological approaches makes it even more exciting for us all.

~Michelle Forman, High School Teacher

• Example 1: Silence Speaks - Stories to heal
  
• Example 2: A Lesson Germ - How do economics, capitalism and social justice intersect?
• Example 3: SFETT ICAN Festival de Cine
• Resource 1: Center for Digital Story Telling
• Resource 2: Article - Implementing a Social Justice Curriculum in an Inner City School
• Resource 3: eMINTS - eThemes

Digital storytelling can take a variety of forms, but what truly makes it a powerful medium? There are a variety of programs out there from MovieMaker to PowerPoint to Producer to Photostory 3. However, simply because there are free tools available certainly does not mean that we, as educators, need to use the newest and greatest software out there just because we can. While there is a place for it, I can’t tell you how many times I see students required to spit information out through MovieMaker instead of PowerPoint with the assumption that the student has learned more.

No, I believe that it is imperative to focus on the instructional content and that it is imperative that we search for avenues that allow students to be drawn into our educational environment. What is important to them and how does that intersect with the curriculum? This certainly does not mean that we only teach what the students want - absolutley not. There are many topics that our students may not be aware of or that they may not have thought through to which they can directly identify.

What amazes me is how involved students get when they start to investigate the stories around them. Take, for example, the immigration issue that came to the fore in the spring of 2006. Our students (here in Texas) became very engaged with this specific social issue - and teachers leapt on the opportunity to help enable students.

I did not have to stretch to find the connection between social justice and state standards. I did not spend my free time with my manuals and try to “fit” social justice in. Rather, I made the mandated curriculum “fit” into the social justice pedagogy and practice that I was using with my students on a daily basis. When we had to manipulate and compute very large (up to billions) and very small (decimals) numbers, we looked at census information, the number of Native Americans that were killed, infected with disease, or relocated to reservations, the amount of money corporations make as compared to the wages of the working class that those corporations employ and exploit.

~Laurence Tan, Teacher, Los Angeles

So, it’s time to get creative … find out how we can enable our students to change the world … and how that passion is tied to our history, the beauty of mathematics, fluid writing and reading, scientific history and knowledge and beyond.

Irving ISD is not an affluent district. We are, in fact, an entirely title 1 district and a really neat place to work. We’re an urban organization with over 33,000 students in our system. On top of that, all of our high school students have laptops along with one middle school and one elementary school that are 1:1. Our community and leadership has simply committed to a 1:1 program.

North Hills is a private, and prestigious, prep school here in Irving. You may be aware of the push towards privatization of education, and North Hills would typically be considered a ‘better’ environment by those who support the concept of privatization. If you are not aware of this, it is time to read.

Sebastian Bozas, principal at de Zavala Middle School (the middle school that is 1:1), reported earlier this week that he received an email from a parent stating that her daughter had been accepted into North Hills, but had been debating whether or not to go to de Zavala despite the ‘opportunity’ to attend a more prestigious prep school. Public schools won out - Mr. Bozas continued by telling us that the daughter had decided to attend Irving Public Schools!! What a smile that put on our faces!

Now, and this is important, I am sure it is NOT the fact that de Zavala has computers that influenced this student’s decision - it IS the fact that de Zavala teachers have embraced teaching with technology and that they have a leadership that pushes them to shift towards teaching at a higher LoTI level and higher thinking levels. Again, it is not the computer that is the independent variable in this equation, it is the quality of instruction and what is possible when technology is available as a tool within a better instructional environment.

Lovin’ it - this is where the left lane ends…

Saturday Morning: Opening Session

Neural Pluralism. For the most part, we encourage, if not insist upon, religious pluralism, ethnic pluralism and linguistic pluralism. BUT, when it comes to recognizing the different learning needs, the different way that we are neurally constructed, we deny the diversity and start to label. Mel Levine spoke to this issue and described his work in brain research and how we, as educators, must take it upon ourselves to accept the diversity in student learning needs and use the current research about learning and how the brain develops to customize our teaching in a way that is ideal for each individual student. This requires a shift for teachers in order to learn more about the development of the brain (based on current research) and apply that knowledge in the classroom.

You can review the ASCD notes about the presentation, OR (and I recommend this one!) listen to a story about Dr. Levine on NPR’s Website. This is outstanding material and well worth the time in reading/learning about it.

This has huge implications when you look at developing a solid one-to-one program. It all comes back to developing a faculty that is sensitive to the needs of different students in an effort to create an environment that engages. It all comes back to taking responsibility for engagement, and working individually with all kids.

I am in Chicago at the ASCD conference, and having a great time! The sessions are great (quality) and I am bathing in the extra time I have for self reflection (and some good Chicago jazz!).

I started Friday in a pre-conference session all about boredom. Richard Strong started with a quote that went something like: “If boredom is different for everybody, then (are we being taped?) … we’re screwed.” We often look at the students in our classroom through the standard lens of labels that are fed to us, not by our own will. A student is labeled by TAKS, LD or ADD, and these labels blind us to the individuality of each student. When we stop to notice our own personality style and how we teach, and then compare that to the personality styles of the different students in our classroom, it becomes apparent that we frequently teach to one type of student, and label the rest.

Richard ended the full day pre-conference session by discussing the meaning of the word responsible, or as he put it - response-able. The claim was that, through diversifying our teaching and learning to match a variety of personality/learning styles, we can develop faculty and students that are ABLE to RESPOND to different needs of others, to different situations and to their life. This should be our goal.

As noted by Richard, boredom is simply a form of depression. We know through research that working with the different personality types as noted by Richard and Harvey Silver, we can trigger engagement in each student. Strong and Silver are in the process of working on a specific framework so that teachers can pinpoint how to bring out the different personality traits, not just through a general lesson, but through specific pieces of one lesson - mix and match your teaching day - RESPOND to the students’ variety of personality types.

Some quotes or thoughts from the session:

I believe that we are in danger of scientificizing education. We should not take a one-eyed view. Culture is the other perspective and we must approach our classrooms with stereo vision.

How many people have planned a great lesson, and it failed? How many people have walked into a class without a clue and had a great day? Half of teaching is design and half of teaching is response.

Boredom is a form of depression - it manifests itself in the inability to find meaning. It comes in three shapes: 1) deprivation shape (I am bored because something is not there); 2) The stimulus lacks meaning; 3) when it takes us to the edge of despair.

People have different ideas. In science, ideas become powerful with evidence. In culture, ideas become powerful within conversation.

A teacher is only as effective as, not what they know, but what the students really walk away with.

Assess, align, adjust, achieve

Concept: turn students into coaches that praise, prompt and probe. Increase feedback, increase response time

Personality types:
Sensing+Thinking=Mastery
Intuition+Thinking=Understanding
Sensing+Feeling=Interpersonal
Intuition+Feeling=Self-Expressive

You can download the PowerPoint and visit their website for further exploration. Not realizing how the morning general session would tie into this concept, I started thinking about how these ideas flow into a 1:1 environment. It is my firm belief that a solid one-to-one laptop program is centered around an institution that has solid instructional practice. That being said, the over-arcing message is that we, as educators must take responsibility for the education of our students. We CAN NOT say, ‘these students just don’t want to learn’, or ‘these kids are different today’. They are OUR students, our kids. We must take responsibility to engage our students and take the time to learn about each one. This is a tough challenge, and the solution is hard work. When we make that commitment, we establish the foundation for a successful 1:1 laptop program - a program where the computer flows through instruction as a tool that is a part of individualized instruction which engages all students.