Bits, Pieces and Questions

Last week—an early morning reading of the New York Times led me to “Next Test: Value of $125,000-a-Year Teachers”

-- An article about the new teachers for The Equity Project Charter School that also asked:

“Is a collection of superb teachers enough to make a great school? Are six-figure salaries the way to get them? And just what makes a teacher great?”

Unsettling, not sitting right with me, wondering what learning theory underpins the decisions, wondering about the organizer, about the premise that top money equates with quality educators and about the standards they employ in evaluating great teachers, about the pedagogical beliefs they seek--

Later that day at ASCD,”The American Idol* of Education”, some description of the teacher selection process quoted from the TEP website:

“Expert Subject-Area Knowledge demonstrated through

· undergraduate and/or graduate coursework and excellent grades in the relevant subject area

· an original piece of writing on any topic in the subject-area

· a written analysis of a pedagogical issue related to the subject area

Teaching Expertise and Experience demonstrated through

· the submission of TWO of the following three items

· an unedited video clip of a lesson, accompanied by a written narrative that analyzes and reflects upon the teaching and learning that occurs in the lesson

· a portfolio of student work that demonstrates the progress of 2 specific students, accompanied by a written narrative that analyzes the progress that each student demonstrates

· assessment data for at least one entire class of students accompanied by a written narrative that provides background on the assessments and analyzes the data

· the submission of one additional piece of evidence of any form demonstrating student learning

· an essay describing personal pedagogical beliefs and approach

· a day-long teaching audition (either in the candidate’s classroom or in a TEP classroom)

Strong Curriculum Development Ability demonstrated through

· one originally developed and refined curricular tool of any form (e.g. written materials, instructional methodology, technological innovation)

Outstanding Verbal Ability demonstrated through

· the quality of the written work submitted in the application

· communication skills demonstrated in the day-long teaching audition”

My initial reaction-- similar to National Board Certification but-- where are the standards? My personal experience-- those standards explicitly stated a belief in social learning, respect for diversity, and a student centered pedagogy that was expected to be evident in each of the four areas that TEP and research acknowledge are attributes of teacher quality.

For some reason, perhaps this lack of standards and what I believe is a questionable premise for the creation of a school, seemingly missing the point of learning, I couldn’t let this go and looked farther. I wonder how these bits and pieces strike you?

The organizer:

“The school’s founder, Zeke M. Vanderhoek, 32, a Yale graduate who founded a test prep company” --source

Zeke M. Vanderhoek at Zoominfo Under education-- no mention of Yale, just Columbia Teachers College

“Mr. Vanderhoek spent three years teaching at Intermediate School 90 in Washington Heights through Teach for America, which places recent college graduates in challenging schools. He started tutoring to supplement his salary and created a test preparation company called Manhattan GMAT in 2000.” -- source

Teacher selection process:

“There will be telephone and in-person interviews, and applicants will have to submit multiple forms of evidence attesting to their students’ achievement and their own prowess; only those scoring at the 90th percentile in the verbal section of the GRE, GMAT or similar tests need apply. The process will culminate in three live teaching auditions.” --source (emphasis is mine)

TEP, Summer Institute, Sabbatical

“The Equity Project (TEP) Charter School believes that teacher quality is the most important factor in achieving educational equity for low income students.” --source

“Summer institute of 6 weeks teaching challenge: One example of a Teaching Challenge & Tangible Deliverable is as follows: How can technology be maximized to collect student data that informs and improves teaching? Deliverable: Create or identify an exemplary piece of data-collection technology and integrate it into the TEP student and teacher experience.” --source

“Required sabbatical: In addition, TEP teacher sabbaticals are not “sabbaticals” in the usual sense of the word, since they will typically occur every fifth or sixth year, instead of every seventh year. TEP believes that the intensity of the teaching profession mandates a shorter duration between sabbaticals. TEP teachers are expected to begin researching sabbatical opportunities at least one year in advance of their sabbatical year. Teachers may use their sabbatical year for employment (e.g. a position at a think tank), education (e.g. a one-year art-history masters program), or travel (e.g. a travel fellowship). Teachers are not paid by TEP during their sabbatical years; however, TEP attempts to assist teachers in securing funding for their sabbatical-year project.” --source

Hmmmm---------------

Cultivating classroom culture --- growing a community for learning

An invitation to an open house celebrating a college graduation accompanied by an email of thanks for setting her on the road to teaching as she excitedly shares the good news of her very “own classroom” in Philadelphia in the fall— (so proud of Jackie!)

And a subsequent flood of memories-- of the first cohort of the Teaching Professions program of which she was an priceless member— of my efforts to grow a community for learning, cultivating a classroom culture foreign to students whose mastery of the skills of playing the game of school were extraordinary and exceptional--consciously and with great care, selecting strategies to encourage and enhance community, collaboration---recognizing now my intuitive and novice attempt at culture making that Andy Crouch so eloquently describes:

“All culture making requires a choice, conscious or unconscious, to take our place in a cultural tradition. We cannot make culture without culture. And this means creation begins with cultivation—taking care of the good things that culture has already handed on to us.”

“One who cultivates tries to create the most fertile conditions for good things to survive and thrive. Cultivating also requires weeding—sorting out what does and does not belong, what will bear fruit and what will choke it out.”--from educationinnovation quoting Andy Crouch

Finding it not only far more difficult but also requiring far more weeding, far more nurturing than I had imagined -- now realizing so much more fully the need, more than that how vital such a culture is to learning in our connected, networked world -- thinking these few perspectives and pieces would have been of great value—- wanting to pass them forward to Jackie and any whose passion for cultivating a community classroom culture draws them here—

First, it seems to me that personal beliefs regarding learning directly correlate to the culture of a classroom. When Jackie and I learned together, my evolving pedagogy had reached the constructivist stage and I prided myself as being a guide on the side, an expert learner who sometimes attempted to model and demonstrate and at other times created opportunities for discovery and exploration. Perhaps more appropriate for this connected, networked world in which we now live and more aligned with my current connectivist approach is the perspective of teacher as “meddler in the middle” (my sincerest thanks to Keith for introducing me to the work of Erica McWilliam; I love the term “meddler” when thinking about learning).

"Meddler-in-the middle" positions the teacher and student as mutually involved in assembling and dis-assembling cultural products. It re-positions teacher and student as co-directors and co-editors of their social world. "Meddler-in-the-middle" challenges more long-term notions of "good" teaching in a number of ways. Specifically, it means: (1) less time giving instructions and more time spent being a usefully ignorant co-worker in the thick of the action; (2) less time spent being a custodial risk minimiser and more time spent being an experimenter and risk-taker; (3) less time spent being a forensic classroom auditor and more time spent being a designer, editor and assembler; (4) less time spent being a counsellor and "best buddy" and more time spent being a collaborative critic and authentic evaluator."--–source ERIC

From Keith’s post:

“In her discussion of the teacher as meddler in the middle, Erica identified three sets of 21st Century Skills:academic functional, aesthetic digital and dynamic interactive.

She suggested that intellectual clout was needed in this work to become ‘usefully ignorant’ as the meddler in the middle. We must be pedagogical experts but not knowledge experts. The 21st century classroom will need to be: Seriously playful, Epistemologically agile, and Low threat high challenge.

Erica explored the skill set of the meddler and her fascination with design, disassembly and rediscovery. She illustrated her point with the story of her as a young child cutting up a tennis ball to find the bounce in(side) the ball. The meddler’s classroom is: Respect rich, Structure rich, Conversation rich, Information rich, Challenge rich.

The classroom is in design mode: what is the idea good for; what does it do and fail to do; does it have a future; how could it be improved; what is the value add? The design classroom is characterised by: Knowledge more than facts, Deeply understand what is being built upon, Social processes.

In the design mode disassembly creates space for thinking. It welcomes error, strategy, instructive complication, and interesting ideas. Meddlers accept and create space for co-designing and are clear about looking for ideas and when error is welcomed. The classroom celebrates wonder, imagination, and step outside held views.”

Imagine the learning! I’d love to be a meddler—a “meddler” cultivating community and a growth mindset.

Second, Mary Ann Downey’s (Decision Bridges) suggestions for building community truly resonate with me; they take me back to my days at Earlham which profoundly influenced my world view. A few snippets:

“The perception students get from too many professors across disciplines from kindergarten to graduate school is that education is not about real discovery and continuing exploration, but is rather a game of ‘let’s see if you can say what the teacher wants you to say’.

Building community in the classroom requires that we create a “laboratory for personal disarmament”, described by Scott Peck, (1985: 69), instead of the guarded, competitive contributions we often encourage by our leadership.

If we are intentional about building community in the classroom, we must learn how to reward cooperation, rather than competition. This means engaging every student in full participation so that their life experience becomes a resource to us and to their peers. As we offer our subject matter expertise, we also need to demonstrate the truth of the saying, “If you would be a teacher, by your students you’ll be taught”. Our challenge is to model and facilitate learning as a cooperative, exciting and creative joint venture.

I’ve identified four key skills that are needed for a group to use the consensus process effectively. These are the same skills that foster true community and that develop each student’s ability and willingness to:

1. Speak truth as they see it; learning to appreciate the value of their life experience
2. Listen with respect to the truth of others
3. Develop an appreciative understanding of differences
4. Integrate differences to make new discoveries”

Envision “Learning as a cooperative, exciting and creative joint venture.” What a classroom culture! One whose potential for engaging students is unbridled, I would think, if also teamed with the cultivation of a growth mindset , as Carol Dweck describes in more detail here.

"...people's self-theories about intelligence have a profound influence on their motivation to learn. Students who hold a "fixed" theory are mainly concerned with how smart they are—they prefer tasks they can already do well and avoid ones on which they may make mistakes and not look smart. In contrast, she said, people who believe in an "expandable" or "growth" theory of intelligence want to challenge themselves to increase their abilities, even if they fail at first."

I'm thinking that too many students who "play the game of school" well have a fixed mindset and respond poorly when faced with challenges of connected, networked learning. Nurturing and cultivating a growth mindset in the clasroom, recognizing effort, can be an important component in growing a community for learning.

Meddling, nurturing and cultivation are good, hard work that never ends, that sometimes are exhausting, that sometimes take more time than we would like, that when successful illuminate our very souls– With kind nurturing and cultivation, won’t our youngsters have the opportunity to become all that they can be? And won’t we, our students and our world be the better for it? Or not?

Unique, unlikely, and compelling collaborations--

Almost 2 years ago, a post---- An unlikely, unique perspective—

Today’s similar but --- Unique, unlikely, and compelling collaborations—

It’s safe to believe it’s not just a fluke---

At my feet lies Harley, an aging, wise, and loving 90 pound German Shepherd. Rescued from abuse and neglect some 6 years ago, this handsome guy has become an integral family member.. His love of life—in the past chasing deer, treeing wild turkeys, and stalking rabbits -- is still evident as his heart, his loyalty, and his love shine through despite his increasing deafness and weakened hindquarters.

And now a seasoned blogger who appears to bring love, and laughter, and learning to his audience and collaborators—those youngsters who still believe and want to believe and join in the fun as this canine speaks to them.

In 2007, I was amazed, yet thrilled by the connections, the learning and the pleasure inspired by Harley’s posts. I feared though the time spent with the Blogicians that year might have been a fluke—just a group of students who happened to like dogs. Yet I hoped – as Harley’s blog seemed to deal with an issue that had saddened me as I sensed since my retirement that the joy of learning and going to school had continued to decline. Steven Wolk addressed those same concerns in an article in Educational Leadership in the fall of 2008 when he wrote:

“from John Dewey's Experience and Education (1938): "What avail is it to win prescribed amounts of information about geography and history, to win the ability to read and write, if in the process the individual loses his own soul?" (p. 49). If the experience of "doing school" destroys children's spirit to learn, their sense of wonder, their curiosity about the world, and their willingness to care for the human condition, have we succeeded as educators, no matter how well our students do on standardized tests?”

No!

I said out loud as I read his article on the Joy of Learning and pledged that Harley would continue to blog as long his audience appreciated his posts and he and they learned from each other. To this day in 2009, Harley’s posts do encourage a sense of wonder and a willingness to care for each other as he communicates and learns through connections on his blog. And happiness and learning are evidenced this year by recent posts from Reflective Voices (5^th graders in Georgia, another of Anne’s projects) who looked back on the year commenting to and hearing from Harley. Harley thanked them here and linked to each student’s post; Filemon’s is particularly revealing.

Isn’t the addition of the term “compelling” appropriate here? How is it that a shepherd can encourage multiple comments from Graciela well into the evenings? Aren’t these youngster’s reactions to Harley’s blog telling us something?

Could it be that a voice that is unique, that is joyful and thankful, that radiates love and concern for all , that shows a genuine interest in his reader’s learning can truly model and generate engaged learning in which youngsters’ eyes sparkle, in which questions abound and answers are eagerly sought, and from which a lifelong love of learning arises?

And if that is so, when might your “Harley” enter the blogosphere to contribute an additional unique perspective bringing even more joy and wonder to learning?

PLP Boot Camp for Educational Leaders

It's been an honor to serve as community leader for the Illinois/Ohio Cohort of PLP. The PLP model is extraordinary-- encouragjng and enabling incredible learning and growth for all those who participate.

And now a new opportunity for educational leaders from PLP-- reposting from Will's blog:

Sheryl and I are excited to announce the inaugural Powerful Learning Practice Visioning Boot Camp for Educational Leaders to be held at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia this summer. You can get all of the details here, but the bottom line is we’ve put together a three-day event for a limited number (25) of participants that we think will help school principals and superintendents get a deep understanding of how the world is shifting, identify and articulate the challenges that we face, begin some serious conversations about long term change in personal and classroom practice, and create a foundation for long range planning.

We’re really pleased that Chris Lehmann will be our host for the three days and that he will be among a group of forward thinking leaders who will share their experiences and expertise with us. We hope you (or your school leader) will join us!

Learning--

PLP, Powerful Learning Practice— Sheryl and Will have purposely a designed a professional development model for 21st century learning that is about learning, unlike so many others whose focus is tools. Throughout the life of the Illinois Ohio cohort, they have pushed, nudged, encouraged, and exhorted community members to engage in understanding the shifts inherent in 21st century learning.

Despite incredible growth on the part of so many members, a testing of the waters of “the shift”, some "I get it"s, there has been resistance, push back, notes about all of the “tech activities” and “technology” currently in place, calls for “tools”— Enamored by tools, captivated by technology--

My own personal journey causes me to wonder if community members personal deep beliefs in how people learn have yet been objects of exploration (although there have been many and varied opportunities), resulting in their reluctance to embrace “shifts” that characterize 21st century learning.

Some 11 years ago, having had an incredible opportunity to participate in 40 hours of professional development on unique and compelling uses (publishing, real time data, communication, collaboration) of the Internet in education, I found my students learning skyrocketed when we participated in collaborative projects. At that time, I decided that learning was the result of using the Internet and I wanted to share that with other teachers. I was wrapped up with the use of the tool. I left the classroom to become a resource teacher in the Instructional Technology Office of a large urban district. Over my three years in that position, I reflected upon all I’d done in my classroom and learned as much as I could about learning. I spent hours designing professional development for teachers that modeled good learning with unique and compelling uses of the Internet, realizing that it wasn’t about technology at all, it was about learning and what I believed about how people learn. I returned to the classroom, humbled and eager to design learning experiences with and for my students.

So I know well that understanding the new science of learning is important and hard work, yet it’s not new.

From How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition 1990

An emphasis on understanding leads to one of the primary characteristics of the new science of learning: its focus on the processes of knowing (e.g., Piaget, 1978; Vygotsky, 1978). 10

Asking which teaching technique is best is analogous to asking which tool is best—a hammer, a screwdriver, a knife, or pliers. In teaching as in carpentry, the selection of tools depends on the task at hand and the materials one is working with
If, instead, the point of departure is a core set of learning principles, then the selection of teaching strategies (mediated, of course, by subject matter, grade level, and desired outcome) can be purposeful. The many possibilities then become a rich set of opportunities from which a teacher constructs an instructional program rather than a chaos of competing alternatives. 23

Learning is influenced in fundamental ways by the context in which it takes place. A community-centered approach requires the development of norms for the classroom and school, as well as connections to the outside world, that support core learning values.

Teachers must attend to designing classroom activities and helping students organize their work in ways that promote the kind of intellectual camaraderie and the attitudes toward learning that build a sense of community. In such a community, students might help one another solve problems by building on each other’s knowledge, asking questions to clarify explanations, and suggesting avenues that would move the group toward its goal (Brown and Campione, 1994). Both cooperation in problem solving (Evans, 1989; Newstead and Evans, 1995) and argumentation (Goldman, 1994; Habermas, 1990; Kuhn, 1991; Moshman, 1995a, 1995b; Salmon and Zeitz, 1995; Youniss and Damon, 1992) among students in such an intellectual community enhance cognitive development.

Teachers must be enabled and encouraged to establish a community of learners among themselves (Lave and Wegner, 1991). These communities can build a sense of comfort with questioning rather than knowing the answer and can develop a model of creating new ideas that build on the contributions of individual members. They can engender a sense of the excitement of learning that is then transferred to the classroom, conferring a sense of ownership of new ideas as they apply to theory and practice. 25

Adapting new theories of learning are even more challenging yet needed.
From George Siemens Connectivism: Learning Theory or Pastime of the Self-Amused? 2006

We are growing in our understanding of learning. Research in neuroscience, theories of social-based learning, and developments in learning psychology create new understanding of the act, and process, of learning.

As Downes (2006) stated,
Learning…occurs in communities, where the practice of learning is the participation in the community. A learning activity is, in essence, a conversation undertaken between the learner and other members of the community. This conversation, in the web 2.0 era, consists not only of words but of images, video, multimedia and more. This conversation forms a rich tapestry of resources, dynamic and interconnected, created not only by experts but by all members of the community, including learners.

Of most importance is that educators are reflecting on how learning has changed and the accompanying implications of how we design the spaces and structures of learning today.

My journey, my evolving practice and changing beliefs about learning-- from behaviorism with task based learning, to cognitivism with clear objectives and problem solving, to constructivism with social learning and knowledge construction by each learner, to conectivism with complex, open, autonomous, distributed learning -- was long, was arduous, was essential. I’d like to think that evolution reflects my ever increasing understanding of the new science of learning and the recognition of the new opportunities for learning afforded by today’s emerging technologies. Yet, today there is more urgency, a greater need to make a great leap to connected networked learning -- to provide appropriate learning experiences for our children in today's world.

Sheryl and Will, with PLP, provide the perfect environment for deep reflection, for introspection into beliefs about learning, for meaningful conversations about learning in community, for making that great leap. It is my fervent hope that reluctant community members will engage and immerse in those types of reflection and conversation, will move beyond the “tools”, will not let such an opportunity to make practice more relevant, more authentic whoosh right by—

Mindful of my own journey, mindful of the possibilities of 21st century learning, ever mindful of my role as community leader, I move beyond hope to continue to encourage, to nudge, to push--

Meeting Sheryl

More than 3 years of connecting, collaborating, and acting on various projects--
K12Online, academic research, Powerful Learning Practice—
Sharing family moments, celebrating, commiserating—
And on my part growing and learning and growing and learning some more—

Constantly appreciative

of Sheryl’s generosity in sharing all she knows-
of her brilliance in creating sustainable models for professional learning-
of her expertise in 21st century learning and building communities of practice-
of her gift for sharing her passions-
of her love for children-

Never meeting, a virtual relationship, a friendship, as real as any possible—

And then an opportunity

to watch her in action urging a group of educators to move to 21st century learning and to collective action-
to actually talk and share in the same space, the same time—
to look into her eyes-

And in that instance as her eyes radiated with the depth of her passion, with her desire to make the world a far better place -- something fine and spiritual passed between two friends—a true moment worth living— one for which I’ll always be grateful--

Photo Credit

Learning as Conversation

What a treat to participate in Chagrin Falls professional development day entitled 21st Century learning and Student Achievement at Abby’s (of SmartSolutions) invitation. Thank you Abby; it was grand to meet you!

I seized on the opportunity to share my passion for learning through conversation on blogs by facilitating a session on that topic. The small group with whom I interacted examined professional conversations, the shift to transparency that occurs in dialogue on blogs, strategies for deepening learning and conversations with students using the comment feature, and along the way engaged in a few conversations with their own comments. We began first with professional conversations for their own learning, believing that with that immersion then educators will develop a better understanding of the potential of conversational learning with students. Too much to consider deeply in just over one hour, I developed a wiki and blog with varied and numerous resources to which they and anyone else with interest might return. My thanks to each of them for considering the concepts and ideas!

We started here:

Second Nature

View more presentations from lanihall. (tags: commenting blogs)

As pleased as I was with this opportunity to share – I was really excited to meet PLP community members from Bedford, Felice and Alison!

And meeting Sheryl is a post unto itself!

Virtually Co Presenting

Connecting, learning, planning, collaborating and co presenting—yet never meeting-

Northeastern Ohio -- Southwestern Ohio
At home and working-- Busy at HCESC --(scroll down to Lynn Ochs)

Humbled and honored by Lynn’s invitation to co present at the eTech Ohio Conference on February 4.

Planning and collaborating on skype, google docs—

Co developing content and a wiki for a session for administrators “Web 2.0 and You: A Leadership Perspective" with thanks to Karl Fisch for the concept to frame the session (he generously gave permission)--

Skyping into the session to help administrators develop an understanding of how they might begin to develop a personal learning network—

Waiting to find the session on iTunesU before posting- not there yet, not patient—

Sharing the wiki and slides--

So thankful, Lynn, for the opportunity to learn, grow and work with you—

Web 2.0 and You: A Leadership Perspective

View more presentations from Lynn Ochs. (tags: web2.0 21st_century)