This week, the Webster-Kirkwood Times wrote an article about our 20% Time program. We are so proud of our kiddos and their projects.
The link to the story is here: News Story.
Friday, 29 May 2015
Thursday, 28 May 2015
Education Readings John Hattie / literacy/ Finland/ Inquiry learning/ and more Sir Ken Robinson
By Allan Alach
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allanalach@inspire.net.nz
This week’s homework!
Hattie’s research: Is wrong Part 4 – a kind of Svengali
NZ educator Kelvin Smythe’s latest posting in his series that deconstructs John Hattie’s ‘research.’
“I predict the Holy Grail label assigned to his research will, given his personality, prove the death of his reputation pushing him on, to ever extreme expressions of arrogance and wrongness. If he claims to live by academia but does not act on it, only great harm will ensue, in the short term, though, that harm has first fallen on schools. As detailed in past postings, with further devastating ones to come, Hattie’s research can be declared rubbish, beyond merit, deep into negative territory. The difficulty in conveying this truth and having it accepted is that his research is so wrong as to be difficult to encompass and for readers to believe.”Game Based Learning - the suspension of reality
Another article by Steve Wheeler that raises an important issue.
“They are an important part of youth culture and teachers can no longer ignore computer games or believe they are irrelevant to education. They are staring us in the face and won't go away. Our challenge now is to discover how we can fully harness the power of these kinds of engagement and the potential for new forms of assessment in formalised settings. Each of these possibilities make learning through games playing highly motivational, but beyond this, they also enable learners to explore new ideas, reflect deeply in their actions, and ultimately, they are fun.”Why we should focus on well-rounded young people – not exceptional grades
“… there needs to be a balancing act between academia and developing essential traits crucial in the real world. They say knowledge is power but what use is knowledge if children haven’t developed their character in a way which allows them to actually use their knowledge successfully?”
When Kids Decide What They Read, They Read More
Really? Who would have thought it?
"This simple intervention allowing students to choose their own books at [the] end of the school year had a significant positive impact. A multifaceted approach is needed to address poor child-literacy rates, but this intervention can be part of the solution.”
Why the attempt to make reading simple? A reply to Learning to Read: Should We Keep Things Simple?
Powerful article by Ken Goodman - a must read.
“There’s no way to make language learning simple. But there is an easy way to help children to learn to read. It is to make the way they found it easy to learn oral language work for them in learning to make sense of written language. Written language is learned just as oral language is learned- in the process if using it.”
Deficit model in education: a dangerous conceit?
This article by Donald Clark is well worth reading!“The illusory maths deficit is the leaning tower of PISAs awful legacy, branding education as a failure and wiping out huge swathes of useful knowledge and skills in favour of illusory benefits.”
And:
“If only more people had more certificates, more degrees, more paper qualifications, we’d live in a utopian paradise of massive productivity and wealth. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. As more and more people get bits of paper, those bits of paper become commoditized and worth less.”
The Global Search for Education: The Arts Face to FaceFeaturing…… Finland of course…
“First, arts subjects are essential if we think in terms of personal development. The arts are essential tools to increase self-awareness and understanding of your own and other's experiences; the arts are a means to understanding emotions and the emotional aspects of life; the arts are also essential tools in self-expression.”
Lessons from neuroscience
“Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting Andrew Curran who delivered a two hour session on the brain and the lessons we can learn from neuroscience to inform our practice in the classroom. In this post, I wouldn’t dream of trying to replicate his vast knowledge, but thought I’d share some takeaways that might inform what you do. Please note, I’m not an expert, and this is my interpretation of what he said.”
This week’s contributions from Bruce Hammonds:
Inquiry in the Classroom: 7 Simple Tools To Get You Started
“Why Use the Inquiry Cycle?
Often used by science professionals to work through problems and research, an inquiry-based approach, or inquiry cycle, is also used in classrooms for scientific and non-scientific topics to encourage students during the learning process. In an inquiry-based approach, teachers help students generate their own appropriate questions and guide the investigation.”
Eudemic: Connecting Education and Technology
Bruce’s comment: Many teachers use the Edutopia(with its focus on project based learning) devised by Star Wars director George Lucas. Edudemic is another rich resource for schools integrating technology into their classrooms. Edutopia’s focus is on project based learning.
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| George Lucas |
Edutopia: Vision and Mission.
Bruce’s comment: Read about Edutopias brilliant vision.
“Our vision is of a new world of learning based on the compelling truth that improving education is the key to the survival of the human race. It’s a world of creativity, inspiration and ambition informed by real-world evidence and experience.”
Are field trips a good way to spend school district funds? Kids say ‘yes’
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| Students on a field trip |
Bruce’s comment: A school district in California rediscover the value of field trips - will wonders never cease!!!!
“It was not abundantly clear that the trip had been a success. Certainly, no one was excitedly explaining how she’d just had an insight into how sound waves work; nor going on about the properties of simple pulleys; nor plotting the invention of an improved slow-motion camera.”
Sir Ken Robinson's new book: 'Creative Schools - Revolutionizing Education from the Ground Up’
In this article Bruce reviews this book and shows how it could be implemented in the classroom.“A must read for anyone who believes in an education system that aims at developing the gifts and talents of all students. My plea is for creative teachers, particularly those in New Zealand, to share this with as many teachers and schools as they can because the message is so important. If we really believe in giving every student the opportunity to leave formal education with their love of learning intact and with all their unique gifts and talents identified then we really have no choice.”
From Bruce’s ‘goldie oldies’ file:
The killing of creativity by the technocrats.
Not to be outdone by Kelvin, here’s an article Bruce wrote back in 2009, that also casts a skeptical eye over John Hattie.
“John Hattie,professor of education Auckland University, confidante of the present Minister of Education. Is his influence undermining the creativity of our teachers? Kelvin Smythe thinks so and, after visiting a number of classrooms, I have to agree with him. Read Kelvin's full article on his site.”
And:
“Somehow, just because Hattie has amalgamated every piece of 'school effectiveness' research available ( mainly it seems from the USA) his findings, it seems, ought to be taken for read. The opposite ought to be the case - we need to be very wary of such so called 'meta research.'. More worrying however is that the approaches he is peddling is pushing into the background the home grown innovative creative learning centred philosophy that was once an important element in many classrooms.”
What is this thing called learning?
What is this thing called learning. It seems simple enough. So why do so many 'learners' fail at school? Dysfunctional schools or dysfunctional learners?“Many teachers draw on their experience, common sense, and professional knowledge as the basis for their teaching. What is sometimes missing is a ‘shared language’ of what learning is across a school so teachers can, talk to each other, their student’s parents, and also to hold themselves accountable.”
Children as scientists“If children are always asking questions then ought not our classrooms help them in their search for answers?
That we haven't yet created schools based on assisting students research their own questions and concerns just goes to show how much 'our' curriculums, what 'we' think is important for them to learn, has ignored the source of real motivation for students to learn.”
Fundamentals in education
Maybe it’s time to reflect on what is fundamental in education.
“So what are the fundamentals of learning? It is too simple to fall back on the default mode of literacy and numeracy indispensable as they obviously are. The real basics of learning are: perceiving, thinking, and forming and the tools to make use of these faculties are words, numbers and shapes.”
Devil in the detail
But if we start banning erasers from schools, what then do we do with computers? Will we need to remove the delete and backspace keys on all the keyboards in the ICT Suite? Do we need to deprive students of the provisionality that all wordprocessors offer? There would be Hell to pay if we did. After all, the ability to continually iterate versions of text or image is part of the creative process. Even better if each version can be preserved to be shown as a process of discovery or creativity that is equally valued alongside the finished product.
Clearly it is nonsense to ban any technology, even simple tools such as erasers, just because they seem to pose some threat to authentic learning. The product is important but so is the process, so why can't both be celebrated equally, and the technologies that brought our students to the point of success not acknowledged? Erasers, just like pencils, computers, whiteboards, sugar paper and pinboards, all have a role to play in the education of our students. The best teachers know that each resource should be used wisely for specific purposes, and none should be overused. There are often simple solutions to the complex problems academics raise. So for now, let's not ban the eraser, but if you insist, perhaps you should ask your students to work their problems through in indelible ink? The devil is in the detail.
Photo by Alex Morfin on Wikimedia Commons
Devil in the detail by Steve Wheeler was written in Liberec, Czech Republic and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
Sir Ken Robinson's new book:'Creative Schools - Revolutionizing Education from the Ground Up'.
Sir Ken Robinson's book is a must read if we want to bring education into the 21stC.
A must read for anyone who believes in an education system that aims at developing the gifts and talents of all students.
Read this article about Sir Ken's latest book
My plea is for creative teachers, particularly those in New Zealand, to share this with as many teachers and schools as they can because the message is so important. If we really believe in giving every student the opportunity to leave formal education with their love of learning intact and with all their unique interests, gifts and talents identified and amplified then we really have no choice.
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| Excellent book. |
Sir Ken offers a real alternation to the current standardized, test orientated reform that countries like New New Zealand have been implementing. The good thing is that New Zealand has not, as yet, gone as far down this standardized approach as Australia, the United Kingdom or the USA.
Sir Ken believes it is time to question the assumptions that underpin traditional education which he believes is now failing too many of our students. He writes that the current reforms, particularly those that focus on introducing standards in literacy and numeracy based on
Current reforms are about standardization, competition and corporatism. (let alone the privatization of schools) - who supplies the tests determines the educations.
Instead of standardization, competition and corporatism, Sir Ken is calling for the personalisation of learning to uncover and amplify the talents of all students.
Sir Ken has worked with countries and states, as well as individual schools, to develop such a system. and he shares what he has found with readers.
He also makes the point that there are creative teachers in every school to make use of. He also encourages educators to visit and learn from the best of early education practitioners and then to ask what has happened to something that starts so well and ends so badly for too many students..
His metaphor for education is not a industrial factory grading one, and sorting and grading students, but an organic living one - a system continually evolving and adapting to changing.
circumstances such as the transformational power of information technology.
He asks readers to consider how they would reinvent schooling and to challenge the taken for granted habits and organisation patterns and rituals that now currently limit students - the demeaning use of ability grouping and streaming is such areas.
What are the dispositions future students will need? How best to organize schools to ensure all students leave with their love of learning intact and their talents developed? Perhaps it is this
A personalized pedagogy demand that we value the questions, feelings and 'inner voice' of all students; something that creative teachers, past-and present, have always known. 'Profound things happen', writes Sir Ken, 'when students are given room to explore their own interests and capacities'. Children have a powerful innate ability to learn and Sir Ken outlines alternative schools that have 'recovered' students who, through formal education, had lost the will to learn.
In New Zealand we at least have the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum to inspire us ( 'every student a seeker, user and creator of their own knowledge') and are also fortunate that we haven't gone so far down the standardized testing road as such countries as the UK, Australia and the USA. But there is no time to waste.
Sir Ken sees teachers as artists assisting their students to develop the skills and talents required for their future success in contrast to currently demeaning compliance demands to 'deliver' the
Teachers need to create provocative learning environments to tap into their students curiosity; to engage, inspire and enthuse them. No exceptions.
Stimulating learning means keeping students curiosity alive. It means helping students surprise themselves with the quality of what they didn't think they could achieve. It's about relationships and expectations. About students working with their teachers and their peers to complete exciting integrated learning projects - at all all levels of schooling.
Sir Ken believes in students being helped to do their best in whatever areas of learning they are involved in - something anyone involved in any form of creative endeavor knows well. He is also supportive of students being given time to complete work of real depth and quality.
I enjoyed his thoughts on 'slow education' which he says is about individualizing the process, about allowing the space and time to discover students' passions and strengths. Slow learning is about
doing fewer things well.
The future is about creativity, imagination and innovation.
Imagination is the root l..of innovation; creativity is putting imagination to work and innovation is putting new ideas into action.
Creative learning is about enlightened trial and error - about learning through giving thing go. Creativity is being prepared to end up where you didn't mean to go - it is about refining, testing, making new connections and keeping what works. It requires discipline and control. All learning is 'driven by appetite for discovery'..... 'And if you don't trust kids to be natural learners, your not going to get there'.
And this means trusting school and in turn teachers.
Success is to be judged by what the students can achieve as shown in their finished work, displays, exhibitions and learning( electronic) portfolios. The wrong sort of assessment ( as now seen in schools ) can kills such learning. Current testing measure little of what is important and has a negative effect on both learning and teaching.Creative teaching requires principals and teachers to operate from a different sense of what education should and could be, and a different interpretation of success.
Creative teaching is not easy. It means challenging conventions and ingrained habits but it is a task that is worth the effort. Sir Ken's book is full of inspiring examples to learn from but their is no one way to success.
'How quickly schools will change will depend, in large part, on the vision of the people who run them, especially the principals, on how they set expectations, and where they draw the lines of permission' .
The first thing is to get clear on what you want for your children and then to create a positive learning environment for all.
The role of a creative leader', Sir Ken writes, ' is not to have all the ideas; it is to encourage a culture where everyone has them'.
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| We don't want your ( right wing) mind conyrol |
Ideally such creativity ought to be encouraged by the policy makers but we haven't time to wait for them. We need to start revolutionizing education 'from the ground up'. Class by class if necessary.
This is why it is important to share Sir Ken's book with other like minds.
My advice is to buy the book,get inspired and join the revolution and at the very least to search out the creative teachers in your own school
Pass on this information about Sir Ken's book now.
Further Reading:
Monday, 25 May 2015
Meet Learner 2.0
I presented a keynote speech in Brisbane for EduTech Australia where the theme for my talk was 'Meet Learner 2.0'. I wanted my audience of mainly higher education teachers to think about the cohort of students that is now coming through the doors of universities. Generally they are young people who have no memory of the last century (the one we were all brought up and educated in), and have been immersed in technology their entire lives. They are younger than the Internet and mobile phones, and they don't recall a time when there was no Google or Facebook. They are residents in the digital age and they carry their connection with them wherever they go. This results in a number of repercussions for education.We are witnessing a shift in education that is likely to be profound. It is a shift in the roles of teachers and learners, and it is one that will alter the relationships we are familiar with. The shift is occurring in the responsibility that learners are adopting to learn for themselves. Teachers have long been advised to become 'guides on the side' so that learners can take responsibility. From Socrates through to Dewey, far sighted and progressive philosophers and theorists have consistently argued that students learn better when they lead their own discovery. But very few educators ever took up this challenge, preferring instead to remain 'in control' of the process of education, the expert sage taking centre stage. The advent of digital technology challenges this traditional model of education.
A recent post on the Edutopia site contained the following passage:
When a student asked how something was done, we'd play dumb and say, "I don't know. We should probably look it up." The student would look it up, ask another question, and we'd say, "Hmmm. That's interesting. How can we find that out?" Again, the student would go to the book. After enough of those sessions, our students stopped bothering to ask us for the answers -- they already knew all the behaviors that would lead to understanding.
Although this instance is clearly taken from a school context, the same principle applies to all education. If the student has the means to discover for himself, why give him the answer? Hands off teaching does promote metacognition (knowing about knowing). Discovering for yourself tends to deepen the learning experience, and motivates students to go that extra mile, to find out for themselves what the answer is to that question that has been nagging at them. It cultivates curiosity, and curiosity always leads to further questions... and the cycle starts again.
The general behaviours identified by John K. Waters in an article in Education Trends in 2011 seem to be gathering pace, and spawning offshoots: 'New learners' are more self directed, and they are better equipped to capture information with their digital tools. They tend to be more reliant on the feedback from their peers, and they are more inclined to collaborate with each other. In short, they are networked learners. Most significantly, they are more oriented to becoming the nodes of their own production. This means that they produce significantly more content related to their learning than previous generations. The mobile phone in their pocket ensures that this happens, constantly. Because they generate more content and learn from it, they are better placed to drive their own learning. The teacher, acting as a co-learner or co-investigator can scaffold this learning, and acts as a guide rather than an instructor. Working with Learner 2.0 will be quite a challenge for many teachers, particularly those who are ingrained in the old methods of education. But Learner 2.0 is already in your institution, and the opportunities far outweigh the threats.
Photo by JISC
Meet Learner 2.0 by Steve Wheeler was written in Liberec, Czech Republic and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Thursday, 21 May 2015
Education Readings - Sir Ken Robinson./David Hood NZ/ Annie Murphy Paul/Jo Boaler and Pavlov's dogs!
By Allan Alach
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allanalach@inspire.net.nz
This week’s homework!
Increasing Student Voice in Local Schools and Districts
An article targeted at high schools, but there’s plenty to stimulate thinking at primary schools.“Student leadership involvement should take place in every high school district. The failure to do so excludes those most affected by decisions from having a voice in that process. It also deprives school boards of some potentially valuable insights. The arguments against this role for students are weak, frequently founded on an underestimation of student maturity and perception that too often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Why Schools Need to Bring Back Shop Class
Sir Ken Robinson..
“Vocational programs – such as carpentry or welding classes, cosmetology classes or many of the other practical areas of study available in some US high schools and in the vocational schools that dot our cities and suburbs — are seen as second-rate options for people who don’t make the academic cut. As we argue in Creative Schools, this academic/vocational caste system is one of the most corrosive problems in education. It need not be.”Classroom Practice - 10 commandments of successful innovation
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| Education's ten Commandments |
“… teachers are usually willing to give everything a try at least once. This can be a positive attribute. But often, by indulging their inner magpie and hurling as many shiny ideas into the mix as possible, teachers guarantee that none of them will be successful. They will end up juggling multiple and often competing schemes, their ideas will not be well considered nor given enough time to take effect, and their students will be left confused.”
Does tinkering lead to learning?
Annie Murphy Paul’s observations on the maker movement - well worth reading.
“Making is too young a phenomenon to have generated a broad research base to answer this question. The literature that does exist comes from enthusiastic champions of making, rather than disinterested investigators. But there are two well-established lines of research within psychology and cognitive science that can inform how we understand making and help us ensure that making leads to learning. Taken together, these two strands of empirical evidence provide the best guide we presently have for maximizing the learning potential of maker activities.”
11 Ways Finland’s Education System Shows Us that “Less is More”.
Just in case you haven’t read about Finland’s education system, here’s another viewpoint.“Currently we believe “more” is the answer to all of our education problems— everything can be solved with MORE classes, longer days, MORE homework, MORE assignments, MORE pressure, MORE content, MORE meetings, MORE after school tutoring, and of course MORE testing! All this is doing is creating MORE burnt out teachers, MORE stressed out students and MORE frustration.”
Knowledge For Literacy
This is a technical article, well worth reading.
“The core definition of a word is only a tiny fragment of the meaning that makes it useful in understanding language. Neuroimaging confirms that the full meaning of a familiar word extends broadly through the mind, including associations to every trace that your experience with that word or its concept has left in your memory. For instance, your full knowledge of the word “apple” extends to the traces in your memory of the many apples in your life…”Why teaching kids to have ‘grit’ isn’t always a good thing
“If you follow fads in education, you probably know that what passes for “character education” in this country is now dominated by the teaching of “grit,” helping students learn how to persevere and stay on task. It is taken for granted that having grit is always a positive thing, but, in the following post, scholar Mike Rose shows that it isn’t always so.”This week’s contributions from Bruce Hammonds:
New Zealand Schools – the Rhetoric and the Reality - and a creative future
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| A must read!!!! |
Bruce’s latest blog post:
‘The current standardised approach’, writes Hood, ‘needs to be replaced by one that focusses on the individual. Personalised learning is about creating a learning environment that responds to the needs of each individual student and their interests, talents and passions and aspirations’.
‘In an environment where there is clear vision, shared values, high expectation and a culture of challenging traditional ways of doing things, then people will work in a myriad of unplanned , unseen and successful ways; it will be a creative and innovative environment’.
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| Jo Boaler |
Memorizers are the lowest achievers and other Common Core math surprises
Bruce’s comment: Stop the math memorization The real oil on mathematics. In a recent commentary math educator Jo Boaler writes, "We don't need students to calculate quickly in math. We need students who can ask good questions, map out pathways, reason about complex solutions, set up models, and communicate in different forms.”
Quick, Draw a Scientist!
Bruce’s comment: What is your class’s image of a scientist? Once you have identified their prior image (stereotype) see if you can modify, or reconstruct, it. A fun activity with some serious learning implications. Consider trying ‘prior drawings’ of students ideas about whatever you are studying, for example what are their prior images of spiders- after learning experiences do another drawing to see if they have changed their minds! A great assessment task.“Inoculating the perception of a scientist is tantamount to fixing the leaky STEM pipeline. If students don't think that being a scientist is for them, humanity loses. A diverse workforce is a better, faster, and stronger workforce. Scientists of diverse backgrounds working together are better suited to solve complex problems, can work with greater agility, and can cure diseases that have been overlooked.”
Tech tip: Avoid blurry vision and ‘shiny objects’
Bruce’s comment: Avoid ‘blurry’ visions and ‘shiny objects’. A short but pertinent article that applies to any school.“If your school (district) doesn’t have a clear vision for what it is and what it needs to be, no matter how “innovative” ideas taken on board are, they will not help to move it forward. Sure, there may be some great discussion and perhaps even some implementation of worthwhile initiatives. But without a vision to clarify and justify the purpose of the initiatives, they all become disparate activities.”
From Bruce’s “goldie oldie” file:
Developing a powerful school vision
This article by Bruce explores a similar theme to the one above.
“All schools these days have Visions, Missions and Strategy Plans but all too often few people can articulate them let alone say what they really mean in action. No matter how well they are drawn up if no ones knows what they mean they are not worth the paper they are written on.”
Pavlov's Dogs - an untold story.
Bruce’s comment: A new twist on Pavlov’s dogs! “It is a shame that we need dramatic shocks for us to change. It took the carnage and unnecessary slaughter of World War One to develop in the ordinary man a distrust of god given authority – particularly of the old generals who were long past their ‘use by date’”
The artistry of teaching and future learning attributes
Bruce’s comment: And a little more on artistry and the innate desire to learn There is a
.‘a lust for knowledge, an ache for understanding is incised in the best of men and woman. As is the calling of the teacher. There is no craft more privileged. To awaken in another human being the powers, dreams beyond one’s own; to induce in others a love for that which one loves; to make of one’s inward present their future; this is the threefold adventure like no other.’
Artistry versus conformity in teaching.
Teacher artistry or deliverer of approved ‘best practices’?
“Teachers need to claim back their professional judgement, or 'artistry', and place greater emphasis on ensuring every student develops their innate gifts, talents, individuality and creativity.”
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