Entries Tagged as '21st Century'

Controlling our Attention Part 2

November 22, 2011 · No Comments · 21st Century, learning, Miscellaneous

Warning: Be careful as you read! I am trying to process how our attention span hinders or helps learning and job performance. Not clear where this blog post is going.  This is definitely writing in the raw! I decided to make it public.

This is a continuation of the conversation started on November 14, 2011 Controlling Your Attention and then again here Channeling Your Attention.

I wish I really could control my attention! I feel like I need to go to some AAA meeting or join a self-help group that will help manage it! Do you have that same problem? I do know that I am not the only person who can control it.

This morning I sat through a meeting and caught myself not paying attention. The principal talked about how they were using benchmark test at the end of the quarter. At that point my mind started wondering about those kids who are not able to perform well on those test.  At another point the principal was telling us about his Friday school. Again I could not keep my focus but began to wonder how it might work and what parents thought. I found my attention drifted in a different direction. There were other people in the room that kept the conversation going. It was important for me to think deeply about this idea.

The same thing happened in an earlier meeting when the principal was talking about the school learning environment and how he was working toward changing it with his staff. And the fact he was being met with lots of resistance from his teachers. My mind wondered again thinking about the conversation I had with a school administrator about how we all different in how we learn. Again we need to figure out how to put our collaborative knowledge to work for the good.

And in an early discussion I had a conversation about attention and most people’s attention changes on average every seven minutes.  Throughout the morning I focused on my attention and have been wondering how to control it.

As you sit through your next profession development, pay attention everyone in the room. Take notice of what they are doing. Are they texting? Tweeting? Grading papers? Staring blankly in to open space? Notetaking? Doodling? Talking? You see all sorts of behaviors, but yet most of the teachers would not permit many of these behaviors in their classroom. I wonder what you could learn from the collective thinking in the rooms!

Spend the day watching kids! Don’t watch the teacher! What are the kids doing? What are they not doing? What can you tell about their attention? I wonder if we could capture their thinking and what would we do differently if we could!

I love visiting Kindergarten classrooms especially when they are gathering on the rug around the teacher as she reads a book.  Great teachers talk about the book before reading!  Watching the looks on the kids faces get bigger! Then the reading starts. A kid interrupts to tell about a connection they have. Another talks about something he did with his Dad that the book reminds. Another talk about the pictures on the page! And the chatter goes on as the teacher reads! The teacher allows the chatter and I am thinking, “Wow”. This teacher understands how important it is for kids to share their thoughts! The teacher allowed the story and the picture to grab their attention! She allowed the learners to share their thoughts!

But yet in another classroom, the kids had learned that this was inappropriate behavior to talk while the story was being read and there seem to be interruptions from fidgeting and kids touching other kids and even more disruptions during the reading.

In this first kindergarten scenario the teacher promoted creative thinking. The believed that learning is social and learning happens in a network. The teacher knew how to channel their attention.

I am presently reading the book Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn  by Cathy Davidson and her book discusses this topic of attention in the chapter about the changes in the work place..  This chapter brought me to this writing, but the point I want to make is this. I am reading this book differently from a fictional writing. I am reading the book to learn and I am very interested in information that is presented in the text. While reading, I need to manage my attention. Certain topics and cues trigger’s connection or interesting points that stops me from reading further. My mind wonders off and many times have this “a Ha” moment(s). Many times I begin to wonder and formulate questions. In order to control my attention I may highlight sentences, passages, phrases, or words or write in the margins or write on a sticky. I might even write a blog post about what I am thinking like I am doing now.

I started this book a week and half ago and I am only on page 175. Last night at 9:30 I had to put the book down to think through what I was reading. And this morning I had a conversation with colleague about what thoughts this led me to. And now I am writing this blog post.

But I think this is important to think further about as we think about the attention spans of the learners in our classrooms. As I am reading Davidson’s book I have tools in place to help me control my attention as I read. In another book I read earlier in the year Because Digital Writing Matters, I controlled my attention and thinking by tweeting my thoughts, wondering, and connections as I read.

What tools do our students have to help them control their attention? What tools do you use to help control yours?

I think this something we must address as we move into full implementation of Common Core Standards. What tools are going to give our students to control their attention and scaffold their reading when the text becomes more complex?

 

 

 

 

 

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Steve Jobs and Why Play is Important!

November 21, 2011 · No Comments · 21st Century, change, learning

In this post, I share quotes from Darell Hammond: If We Don’t Let Our Children Play, Who Will Be the Next Steve Jobs?that sum up what Steve Jobs thinks about Play. I couldl not agree with him more. Our kids are growing up in a sterile environment. Where is innovation? Where are our innovators? Who is helping them learn?

  •  ”we are failing to inspire our children’s curiosity, creativity, and imagination. We are denying them opportunities to tinker, discover, and explore — in short, to play.

  • play to understand how things worked,
  • played to invent new things
  • laying to make those things singularly whimsical and “insanely great.”
  • Jobs often struggled within the confines of a classroom. He would likely perform very poorly on the multiple-choice tests that have become the golden standard for measuring our children’s aptitude:
  • “School was pretty hard for me at the beginning. My mother taught me how to read before I got to school and so when I got there I really just wanted to do two things. I wanted to read books because I loved reading books and I wanted to go outside and chase butterflies. You know, do the things that five year olds like to do. I encountered authority of a different kind than I had ever encountered before, and I did not like it. And they really almost got me. They came close to really beating any curiosity out of me.”
  • We say we’re “protecting” our children. We say we’re setting them up to “succeed.” Really, we’re doing neither, and we’re letting an entire generation down. The most fitting way to honor Jobs’ legacy? Let our kids outside to play.”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Highlights- Michael Levine: Transforming Teaching For Today’s Tech-Savvy Young Children

November 18, 2011 · No Comments · 21st Century

Important quotes and notes from this article Michael Levine: Transforming Teaching For Today’s Tech-Savvy Young Children. Click the link to read the full article.  Below are actual quotes that sum up the important information from this article.

  • To break through their deeply entrenched approaches, we must address two  fundamental failures. By doing so we can advance the still powerful possibility  that educational technology can be a positive disruption for our nation’s  learning capacity.
    • First, technology on its own is relatively neutral: But if teachers and other  caregivers are not knowledgeable about ways to deploy key design elements to  personalize, deepen and extend learning, we face the typical adaptation cycle in  which practitioners place new labels on the same old ineffective practices.
    • Second, our country is rapidly escalating gaps in income and opportunities to  learn that if left unchecked, will cascade for at least a generation.
  • a new emphasis on capable teaching and more effective parenting of children in  their preschool and primary years is the most cost effective way to respond to  the related educational and economic crises we face.
  • recent studies like Common Sense Media’s report “Zero to Eight” have shown that children ages 3-8 are  consuming 3-7 hours of media daily.
  • But their research also shows a disturbing “app gap” between the upper income  children who have access to powerful new technologies such as iPads and  smartphones and those who can barely afford regular Internet access in their  homes.These studies drive home several key issues, but two stand out:
    • First, teachers cannot teach and parents cannot perform their duties  responsibly if they do not have access, or appropriate guidance, training and  support to deploy new technologies
    • second, if we don’t place a sharp emphasis on the 1.5 million children who  enter kindergarten every year already behind their peers, we will face enormous  long-term societal challenges.
  • “Take a Giant Step,” sets forth several goals to meet by 2020 to integrate  digital media in education to help bring the most underserved students up to  speed with 21st century skills including:
    • Advance technology integration and infrastructure
    • Modernize professional learning programs and models
      • States, local districts, Head Start and other early learning programs should  develop curricula and training resources for teachers and parents on the  appropriate use of technologies with young children.
    • Expand public media use as a cost-effective asset for teachers
    • Create a Digital Teacher Corps
  • A new public-private partnership should be designed to support a corps of 5,000  teachers whose goal is to integrate modern technologies and best teaching  practices to address the “fourth grade reading slump” that afflicts over one  million young children annually.
  • Linda Darling-Hammond, the nation’s leading expert on teacher quality and  professional reform said: “Teaching young children today demands a new approach  to an exciting but increasingly complex set of challenges. Quality early  learning programs in our digital age will be led by highly prepared, flexible  teachers who can effectively integrate what they know about healthy child  development with the resources of an always connected, thoroughly modern  environment. Together we can deploy technology to design a new pathway for our  youngest kids — where teaching is intentional, learning is engaging, and  community matters most.”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Cathy N. Davidson on Evolving Education | Spark

November 11, 2011 · No Comments · 21st Century, change, Podcast

Today’s Featured Podcast

Interview with Cathy Davidson the author of Now You See It.

Full Interview: Cathy N. Davidson on Evolving Education | Spark on Huffduffer

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Finding Value in What I am Learning……

November 11, 2011 · No Comments · 21st Century, reflecting, school reform

Today my reading journey too me here and here and here and here and here and here. I am not sure I am making a point, but rawness of the writing below is helping me clarify what I value in education and what I am learning.

Here I wrote “Old school is so intimidated about the huge change that is lurking around the corner. We have educated generations of people with a vision for public education based on their experiences inside the classroom for 12 plus years of their life. Public education as we know is spiraling in a direction that a tipping point of change is in the air. If we don’t embrace change, the crash is going to be eventful at the local level. We will wake up day and not understand what has hit us.”

Four years ago Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen predicted that online education would take off slowly and then hit everyone by surprise.

Then Khan Academy, founded by Salman Khan in 2006., Khan’s business model is simple, yet impactful. It flips education on its head.  Rather than filling the day with lectures and requiring students to complete exercises after school, Khan focuses on classroom exercises throughout the day and allows students to download more lectures after school. The idea of a flipped classroom was born.

Then this article Khan Academy Snags $5 Million To Blow Up Education.  This is frightening.

Then there are a plethora of change that surround and engulf us – we expect school to stay constant, to remain immune to world forces, to be almost outside of time.

Mind Shifts reinforces that idea the one that teaches learns the most. The teacher is the classroom is the most learned one in the class.  The mind shift has to focus on what the learner does with the literacy skills in the practice of learning.

In a recent blog post Will Richardson writes about Redefining Our Value. Will states  “the biggest challenge we face as educators is redefining our value as schools and classrooms and teachers, not just to the taxpaying public but to ourselves as well.”

Will makes mention of Pearson and their answer to the disruption of education.

“One of the largest textbook publishers in the world is making its digital course offerings more data-driven and individualized. Pearson announced Tuesday an extensive partnership with Knewton, a startup that specializes in adaptive learning technology. Students in these courses use the computer during class time to work through material at their own speed. Through diagnostics taken along the way, the program creates a “personalized learning path” that targets exactly what lessons they need to work on and then delivers the appropriate material. Points, badges and other game mechanics theoretically keep students chugging through courses with more motivation. In the meantime, teachers learn which students are struggling with exactly which concepts.

“It frees me up from having to address one lecture to 60 or 70 students at once,” says Scott Surgent, associate director of mathematics at Arizona State University, in a Knewton promotional video about the courses. “I can roam around the Knewton laboratory and help the students as needed.””

from Pearson and Knewton Team Up to Make Learning Personal

And we are in danger of more start up educational platforms like Pearson in digital spaces.  Education policy makers can find ways to hire fewer teachers and help with budget issues.

What is that we really value in education?  Will our classrooms be reduced to filling in the blanks (Will Richardson) when the computer software can’t help? And the teachers are there to fill in the blanks.  Would this be what we really value?

Another point, we continue talk about data driven decision making.  Have we gone overboard with data driven decision-making? Are we able to catch the needs of all students by just relying on the data? I am all for data driven decision-making.  We must rely on other filters when the data does not tell us the whole story.

“As Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn argued in Disrupting Class, insufficient money, the teachers’ unions, and large classroom size, all relevant issues, are not the root cause of our schools’ troubles. The real problem lies in the effects standardized education has had on a student’s internal and external motivation. As the authors point out, “When education is well aligned with one’s stronger intelligences, aptitudes, or styles, understanding can come more easily and with greater enthusiasm.””

from How Online Innovators Are Disrupting Education

 Closing Thoughts of Such Ramblings.

“In the end, I guess, I believe in the quality, competence and creativity of her teachers. And perhaps that’s a type of faith worth having, one that in public education is being permanently (and sometimes understandably) eroded. Linda Rief, one of the Oyster River teachers, told Mr. Winerip that she feared “public schools where teachers are trusted to make learning fun are on the way out.”

“Ms. Rief understands that packaged curriculums and standardized assessments offer schools an economy of scale that she and her kind cannot compete with,” Mr. Winerip writes.

from What We Learn (or Don’t) From Test Scores

And that says it all!

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Mind Shift

November 4, 2011 · 5 Comments · 21st Century, learning, reflecting, Teaching

There has to be a mind shift from the familiar traditional learning environment.

 

In a traditional learning environment the classroom is teacher centered and the teacher is upstage and the teacher has all the control over learning.

21st century thinking the thinking is reversed. The classroom is learner centered and what happens in the classroom the focus is on the learner and the process of learning. Good teaching grows out of the number one priority- the learner and then the guaranteed viable curriculum. First we focus on the skills that the learners have already acquired. We use those skill (habits) in the practice of learning and the teacher develops instruction to build the skill the learner needs in real time learning.

The mind shift has to focus on what the learner does with the literacy skills in the practice of learning. Teachers hone in on those skills that need to be sharpened to improve the ability of the student to learn. The teachers are the facilitators and mentors, guiding students through learning and creation in powerful ways. Students no longer come to school to receive information from a teacher. The challenge becomes to re-imagine the classroom to make it the place where students and teachers come together face-to-face to create shared knowledge. Classrooms and school must take advantage of the abundance of information and data that is being shared through the Internet. No longer is information a scarcity. No longer have the teacher and the textbook held the scarce information. Learning in the traditional sense relies heavily on the teachers knowledge and the textbook.

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“Social Media Is Changing the Way We Live and Learn”

November 3, 2011 · 4 Comments · 21st Century, 21st century classroom

I am reading What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technology and Social Media. I am thrilled with the work of the entire contributor’s so far. Great work guys!

My keepers come from the first Interlude titled “Social Media Is Changing the Way We Live and Learn” written Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach.

  1.  We must have trust in our PLN. We have to be willing to share our ideas openly and honestly. We must be willing to take risk. (McLeod, 2011, p. 69)
  2. “Today’s children are growing up in a new culture of privacy, where they go about their lives aware that they have an audience.” (McLeod, 2011, p. 70) They are more comfortable to openness and honesty and sharing with much more transparency than any generation of people.  It is part of the 21st century culture. (McLeod, 2011, p. 70)
  3. Four stages of mastering the connected world:

a.       Sharing- key to the network.  Sharing leads to connecting and network building.

b.      Cooperating- done through sharing of ideas and resources. It is about connections and relationship building.

c.       Collaboration- building something together that leads to outcomes that affect society for the greater good. We share our gifts, talents, knowledge, and skills for the common good.

d.      Collective action- working toward positive global change. We are part of something bigger that will change society for the better. (McLeod, 2011, pp. 70-71)

4.      “But first we must be willing to understand and own the tools and shifts ourselves: you cannot give away what you do not own. “ (McLeod, 2011, p. 72)

 

Bibliography

 

McLeod, S. a. (2011). What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technology and Social Media. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

 

 

 

 

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Sharing- key to the network.

November 3, 2011 · No Comments · 21st Century, school reform

Sharing and openness in education arrives together. This is video of a David Wiley TED talk.

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Thinking about teaching with primary sources

November 1, 2011 · 3 Comments · 21st Century, Literacy in Social Studies, social studies

Speaking of primary sources such as images- it is important to have access to important picture clues and activate prior knowledge. A primary source helps unfold the story and leads the curious mind to the story. When teaching young and older learners, primary sources can provide the hook into learning. It serves at the possibility of activating prior knowledge and building curiosity. As we know children need to talk about real things, describing and elaborating on real things. Primary sources intrigues us as some level but can serve as a catalyst to enlightened the learner’s curiosity.

Primary sources serve as hooks to the learning process. The can help the mind to associate with an event, idea, or person in history.

Primary sources can be the key to making the basics of critical thinking—asking questions, seeking answers, and drawing conclusions—central to teaching. Primary sources are the stuff of life—what we do, say, perform, sing, make, and create—that we categorize, study, and analyze through the lenses of the humanities, the sciences, folklife, and the arts. Primary sources are the things that intrigue us that pushes us to ask questions, seek answers, and draw conclusion. Primary sources are the raw material that both scientist and historian study to make sense of life.

To use primary sources most effectively, educators must ask questions that will prompt students to draw from their own experiences and knowledge, to explore and think about what is before them.

As I reflect back on the learning activity with my Teaching American History Grant teachers, The Charleston Archival Challenge, we could provide opportunities for our students in our classrooms similar to what they experienced. Themes sets of primary sources can be put together in file folders with an essential question attached to the front of the folder. Participants have opportunities to read, write, think, discuss, and present their knowledge to a larger audience.

In our student classrooms we can provide opportunities for similar research by grouping themed topics for small group collaboration. We have to find ways to give kids the opportunity to indulge their curiosity, ask some questions, and find some answers. Mini research projects lend themselves to larger projects. What my teachers experienced during the challenge them and engage them without overwhelming them.

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“separate spaces for”

October 29, 2011 · No Comments · 21st Century

“Everything about school and work in the twentieth century was designed to create and reinforce separate subjects, separate cultures, separate grades, separate functions, separate spaces for personal life, work, private life, public life, and all the other divisions.”

Cathy Davidson, Now You See It

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