Small Changes; BIG RETURNS

My next course at Wilkes – Assessment – is about to begin,  and I have to admit that I’ve been sneaking a peak at the course moodle. The first glance convinced me that I’ll have to better plant my weeks in order to keep all the responsibilities I’m juggling up in the air.

Cartoon source: Jim Unger in Juggling Cartoons (adapted)

Interestingly, Angela Maiers’ session in Classroom 2.0 Live on Saturday was about how we can better manage our time when it comes to keeping up with reading and social networking. Ironically, I tuned into the session about half way through. After 2 weeks with several sleepless nights preparing for 3 presentations, struggling with how to make a project rubric in the last course, and trying to get back into giving my own school projects more time, I had decided to give myself permission to step away from the computer for a while and overslept the start time.

Somehow I don’t think Angela would ever have let that happen (sigh). She has a plan for just about everything: for her days, for her blog, for her Twittering, for her company ... and she approaches each of these with the goal of not only getting through all the networking tasks but with the deliberate intention of becoming even more connected.

I’m going to listen to the full archive of Angela’s session again and work on clarifying my own goals for the next months. I’ve reached a ‘hub moment’ in my life when some important decisions have to be made. Will I go back to my desk in the fall or will I retire? If I do retire, with breast cancer in my past, can I take the long view? How can I not? What do I really want to be doing this time next year? How can I best make that happen?

One of the first Discussions in the Assessment course asks us to write about our expectations. I’m not really sure I have any – hopes perhaps, but not expectations. My quick preview revealed that much of the focus will be about the testing requirements US schools now live under. This is going to touch deep nerves in many of my co-students whose schools are being transformed into test prep machines in an endeavour to get their reading and math scores up and whose colleagues are being laid off in huge numbers as a result of the difficult economic time in their states. The week 3 assignment asks us to review a journal or newspaper article about NCLB and comment on how it touches our own lives. This one by Jordan Sonnonblick in the School Library Journal (5/1/2008) I think will strike a deep chord with many of them: Killing Me Softly: No Child Left Behind.

Cartoon source: David Horsey in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (2004) reprinted in Fred Klonsky’s blog (31 August 2007)

What I’ll be looking for personally is whether this course will model a richer approach to assessment. My e-teaching colleagues are struggling with how to ‘see’ multidimensional growth in their online students. They want their assessments to take into account more than content acquisition, skills development, and intellectual capability. They want ways to assess deeper learning and affect, but have few models for this.

Cartoon source: Kevin Siers in The Charlotte Observer (2001) reprinted in Midwest Regional Peace & Justice Caucus Blog (14 June 2007)

During the last course -- ‘Project-Based Learning’ – many of the students experienced some trepidation about doing the group project. When it became apparent that we could not choose our own partners, many fears and frustrations associated with past group projects bubbled to the surface: how were the partners going to be chosen? how would we ever find a time when we could all meet? what if one person in the group didn’t finish his/her part of the project? what if we couldn’t agree on what to do? what if I did all the work and everyone got a good mark because of it?

I was able to make a personal peace with all of this by finally learning how to work toplease myself. If others benefit from my work, that in no way hurts me. If we can so easily accept the idea of ‘collateral damage’ (other people being unintentionally hurt by our actions or decisions) why is the opposite so hard to swallow (others unintentionally benefiting)? I was fortunate because my 2 partners were equally involved in the group project, but if they had not been, I’d have still done the work because I’m taking this program to force myself to learn new skills and approaches by doing. That’s what is making me happy right now.

That being said, what monsters seem to be lurking in the closet of this new course? First there are a lot of tests!! Well – they’re called ‘quizzes’, but if it looks like a test and is marked like a test – in my life that makes it a test. I’m wondering if we’ll be left all alone trying to figure out the answers or if there will be some direct instruction to complement the readings and make the main points clear.

Cartoon source: Ralph Hagen in CartoonStock (search ID: rhan897)

Finally, I’m going to have to really reach to make the deliberate concentration on ‘issues American’ meaningful in my little Canadian corner of the universe. When chatting with my US counterparts on ‘Wilkes Tuesdays’ I always feel a deep sense of relief that my work is not encumbered by provincial accountability measures, high stakes standardised testing, and branding of educational initiatives. It spurs me to work even harder to ensure that the parents of my students are not given reason to turn to shallow, and ill-planned initiatives like NCLB because don’t trust the quality of my teaching.  

The good news is that although I didn’t think I had anything to learn from the constructivist approach when I started my PBL course, it’s actually had a profound effect on my approach to course planning.  I’m optimistic that the same thing will have happened by the time I reach the end of Assessment.

So I have been offline for a few days -- not away from the computer, just not 'taking calls'. I had to get a unit on Weather  ready for a student who is progressing through Earth Science 11 faster than I can produce good stuff for him. Given the pressure of 1.25 jobs, temporarily living without my partner (he's in Edmonton working on a job that's bringing in nearly $2000 a week!), and getting ready for ILC 2008 in San Jose, I have had to ignore the pile of e-mails, subscriptions, and posts from various groups I've joined that I knew was collecting in my various email boxes in order to put my fingers to the keyboard and churn out engaging material about everyone's favourite topic.

Braving the weather makes us strong.  Talking about the weather gives us something in common.  When I lived in a different city from my family, my Dad used to call me long distance and we would chat about the weather.  When they're done, my students should know what makes the wind blow, what kind a front brings the kind of wind that is threatening to topple the over-heavy trees in my yard as I write,  and how the rain forms.  When their own kids ask "Why is the sky blue, Daddy?" if they can't recall the answer, they should be able to look it up with their kids and understand the explanation. If they catch from me a sense of how interesting the science of weather can be and look at the world with a little more understanding, I'll retire happy.

All my students work on individual learning packages, and even in this high pressure week, I didn't have the heart to hand out the 'copy-memorize-dump out on the test' stuff that makes up most of the learning packages that we use. Weather  I had to rewrite!  I finished it a few hours ago, and then let the deluge of emails flow out of the ether & onto my desktop.  It was kind of like watching the scene in Miracle on 34th Street when the bags of letters to Santa are dumped out on the judge's bench.  The most important items -- mostly education blogs and lists about tools and interesting initiatives -- have been sorted and filed. Family and friends have been replied to. The rest can wait.

In the meantime, the most interesting tools I came across today are listed below. Remember to click the pics.

GLOGSTER wants us to 'poster ourselves' -- a 'dumb' slogan but a great looking result.

 

Free video help for homework and test prep -- even for math -- but nothing on weather (boohoo!).  Some of these videos are a little young for my 15-17 year olds, but they're worth a look.

WEBINSIPIRATION  is a visual thinking tool that makes it easy to collaborate on and share documents by inviting others to contribute, post comments, and view changes.

For the budding composers in my class and new users can sign up free -- the drawback is that you have to subscribe ($$) to get a fully functioning version.

THE ART ZONE  -- interactive art that you can make online from the National Gallery of Art

I'm looking for a new way to communicate with my students -- especially when I have to be away from school or when I have new tools to share --  so I'm considering 2 possibilities:

 

    Grou.ps  -- where I can create a community site by choosing the modules I want -- it sounds a bit like Squidoo but with interactive capabilities.

 

   Offers me microblogging for education -- my students & I can share notes, links, and files to foster communication inside and outside of the classroom.

I want to thank shareski for his Interesting Quotes  series in Flickr.  I have to say I really don't get Twitter.  I can't imagine (a) having the time or (b) really caring enough to wonder what strangers are doing 24/7, but this poster and Angela Maiers' blogpost on the subject have me curious -- which is a big step.  Twitter's in my November 'to do' lineup.

Last spring when I was first looking for free, downloadable software that I could use to build interesting learning packages for the kids, I came across Freepath -- a multimedia packaging tool.  I can collect all the materials I use --  text files, PDF's, videos, sound files, and Powerpoints, and more -- and sequence them in a single playlist for a lesson or a presentation.  I managed to get my school district to allow my school to download Freepath to the our computer on a trial basis -- and now I'm in the process of working out how I can take the last step away from textbook-based learning into developing learning packages that will look something like this.  

By storing my playlist files online at myFreepath, I can make them available to the students who will be able to download them at home or bring their thumbdrives to school to be loaded.  I'll be able to invite other teachers to share my files and collaborate to improve them or build new ones.  

 

 

When I sign off here, I have to work on a list of questions sent by Dave of myFreepath.  The list reads a little like the final exams I took back when I was in 'teacher training' some 35 years ago. Many years ago a friend and co-department member at the time, Nancy Demwell, told me that she believed all teachers ought to be able to articulate the fundamental principles upon which their work was built. Few of us ever have to unless we're interviewing for a new job or want to move up the ladder into administration.

I think Nancy felt teachers fell into 2 groups: those whose work is infused with a well-articulated vision and those who fly by the seat of their pants.  The latter will certainly keep up with content requirements, familiarize themselves with new trends, and discipline as they saw fit at the time,  but their work lacks a greater coherence and meaning and has little lasting impact on the lives of their students.  She believed that answers to questions such as "Why are you a teacher?"  reveal a lot about whether the individual was a deeper thinker or "was good with people and wanted to good things for kids" -- a vague kind of response she thought was particularly flakey.  

So with Nancy on my mind, I am going to tackle Dave's questions. It's an interesting exercise especially given that I'm a year or 18 months at most away from retirement. I suspect with all this new passion for my work bubbling up again, my colleagues may be taking bets on whether I'll really going to leave or not.

Take a look at these and see what you come up with. Please send me your responses.

 QUESTIONS (courtesy Dave at myFreepath & edited a little by me):

(1) What is the core of your perception of the integration of new tools into the classroom? 

(2) How do you balance the need for "leading edge" tools with the normal time requirements of your program?

(3) In your blog, you discuss the idea of 'blended learning'; what does this teaching model look like?

 
(4) How do you see social media impacting students in the 21st century? How does it impact teachers and where do you see the intersection?

(5) How might Freepath fit into your classroom?