A new pedagogy is emerging… and online learning is a key contributing factor — from contactnorth.ca

Excerpt:

THREE EMERGING PEDAGOGICAL TRENDS
Underlying these developments are some common factors or trends:

1.    A move to opening up learning, making it more accessible and flexible. The classroom is no longer the unique centre of learning, based on information delivery through a lecture.

2.    An increased sharing of power between the professor and the learner. This is manifest as a changing professorial role, towards more support and negotiation over content and methods, and a focus on developing and supporting learner autonomy. On the student side, this can mean an emphasis on learners supporting each other through new social media, peer assessment, discussion groups, even online study groups but with guidance, support and feedback from content experts.

3.    An increased use of technology not only to deliver teaching, but also to support and assist students and to provide new forms of student assessment.

It is important to emphasize that these are emerging pedagogical trends. More experimentation, evaluation, and research are needed to identify those that will have lasting value and a permanent effect on the system.

Impact on Student Learning
Student learning is the other key component of an emerging pedagogy, with their success as the goal of all our efforts.

  • What new demands are student making in terms of how they want to be taught and assessed and what are your responses?
  • What new roles are students taking in their online or hybrid learning and how has this changed your teaching practice?
  • What new strategies for and areas of student support are being built into course structures to facilitate effective online learning?
 

A Rebirth of Liberty and Learning — from imprimis.hillsdale.edu by Larry Arnn, President, Hillsdale College, with thanks to Mr. Andy Thorburn for this resource

Excerpt:

At Hillsdale College students read a lot of old books, including Plato’s Republic. In the Republic they read the story of Gyges’ ring—a ring that makes the wearer of it invisible. One of Socrates’ interlocutors in the Republic, a young man named Glaucon, raises the question: Why would a man in possession of such a ring not use it to do and obtain whatever he wishes? Why would he not use the ring’s powers, for instance, to become a tyrant? In response, Socrates turns the discussion to another question: What is the right way for a man to live? What is just by nature and what is unjust?

These Socratic questions were once at the center or core of education, and they remain at the center or core of education at Hillsdale College. But in American education as a whole, these questions have been abandoned.

Bereft of the kind of questions posed by Socrates in the Republic—or the kind of questions raised in the Bible, or in the plays of Shakespeare—modern education treats students chiefly as factors of production, as people to be trained for productive jobs. And although we all wish productive jobs for our children, as parents we know that they are not chiefly job seekers or factors of production. After all, how many of us, if we were given the choice of our children earning a lot of money and being bad, or struggling economically and being good, would choose the former?

 

From DSC, a portion of my thoughts back to Andy Thorburn on this were:

A great article, and highly relevant.  It’s also timely, as the jury is starting to come in for me re: the Common Core.  I’m not a big fan of it, because of how it was created and who developed it (few if any teachers were involved with creating it; I’ve been reading the postings from Anthony Cody for his research on these topics; example here), and the devastating impact it could have on students who are already struggling with school as it is.

Re: K-12 education:
I’m disheartened to see what education has/is becoming — packing people into molds (by age) and not helping students identify and develop their passions, gifts, abilities. I’d like to see us provide students with more choice, and more control over their own learning. We’re all into lifelong learning now, so it seems to me that if someone enjoys learning, they will have a more enjoyable/productive lifetime.

Hal Plotkin, at his keynote speech for the Sloan Consortium, said that we shouldn’t use the term “drop outs.” Instead, we should use the term “pushed outs” as that would help people better understand the dynamics at play.

Re: higher education:
I think the issue we have these days is that the price of education has forced the situation upon students/families that we find ourselves in — i.e. that when you are paying $100K-$250+ for an education, a student these days can’t help but be concerned about what job they are going to get, what vocation they are going into, how they are going to pay off their debt (which as of 2013 averages ~$30,000 per student), etc.   If the total price of an education were $10,000, one could take it easier on that front and pursue the type of education Larry Arnn discussed; which is a great education, by the way.
 

Seeing the toll, schools revise zero tolerance — from nytimes.com by Lizette Alvarez

Excerpt (emphasis):

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Faced with mounting evidence that get-tough policies in schools are leading to arrest records, low academic achievement and high dropout rates that especially affect minority students, cities and school districts around the country are rethinking their approach to minor offenses.

Rather than push children out of school, districts like Broward are now doing the opposite: choosing to keep lawbreaking students in school, away from trouble on the streets, and offering them counseling and other assistance aimed at changing behavior.

“We are not accepting that we need to have hundreds of students getting arrested and getting records that impact their lifelong chances to get a job, go into the military, get financial aid.”

 

From DSC:
Some thoughts immediately come to mind:

Hal Plotkin’s Keynote at the 19th Annual Sloan C conference addressed this same idea of being pushed out — we should get rid of the words/phrase “drop outs” he said.  Paraphrasing Hal:

We shouldn’t use the phrase “drop outs.”  Instead we should use the phrase “pushed outs.”   It’s like walking by someone drowning and yelling at them to get out of the water — but not throwing them a lifeline. If we used the phrase pushed outs instead of drop outs, people would better understand what’s going on.

Students are being pushed out.  They’re disengaged.

From society’s standpoint, what’s better? To have an engaged student being able to pursue his/her passions, while staying out of trouble and actually enjoying learning — or — have a youth walking the streets for a time before ending up with criminal records and being locked away?  This seems to be true for the individual’s standpoint as well.

Lastly, my hunch here is that the Common Core State Standards and the enormous push for standardized testing is hurting us here — not helping us.  In fact, I’ll bet we will see a direct relationship between the amount we press these initiatives and the number of youth we push out of the system.

Let’s try some new strategies and experiments — at least to a small degree; what have we got to lose?

 

From one of my early coaches:

Always change a losing game.
Never change a winning game.

 

 

 

SchoolStartingAge-TheEvidence-UofCambridgeResearch9-24-13

 

From DSC:
With a huge thank you/shout out to Dr. Kate Byerwalter, Professor of Psychology at Grand Rapids Community College, for this resource.  Per Dr. Byerwalter (emphasis DSC):

I am a big supporter of play for younger children– the benefits are cognitive as well as social and emotional. But this new push towards early academics and testing is taking away time for play. 

…one study (in the linked item above) found that kids who waited to start formal schooling until age 7 (when many cultures consider kids to be more responsible, etc.) had the same reading ability at age 11 as kids who began reading at age 5, and the kids who started later had better attitudes about reading and better text comprehension..

 

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

This is a brief review of the relevant research evidence which overwhelmingly supports a later start to formal education. This evidence relates to the contribution of playful experiences to children’s development as learners, and the consequences of starting formal learning at the age of four to five years of age.

 

 

From DSC:
First of all, here in the United States…I can’t help but think that the push for more “standardized testing” — as well as the Common Core being throttled at full-steam ahead — are like run-away trains (here’s but one example); that is, if you wanted to do so, they are very hard to stop.  The unanswered question (at least for me) is, “Will they cause an enormous amount of damage when they have finally run their course?”

Secondly, as students get older, I think the word balance comes in to play here.

Balance in assessment. Balance in play. Balance in times to rest (see this important posting from a teacher now teaching in Finland for his thoughts on this topic). Balance in the offerings (arts, music, etc.) as well as STEM-related offerings.

Lastly, this entire posting/topic makes me think of the janitor from my college days at Northwestern.  Occasionally, if I was rushing too much to get to my next class, he used to yell to me, “Take it eeeassssyyy young man!”  

If we don’t heed these words of wisdom, how will these run-away trains affect students’ learning experiences and their viewpoints on education/learning?  Given the pace of change and the shrinking 1/2 lives of information….we need them to at least like learning; as they will have many years of needing to do so ahead of them.

 

 

Also see:

  • The importance of play
    Dr. David Whitebread
    University of Cambridge
    With Marisol Basilio, Martina Kuvalja and Mohini Verma
    A report on the value of children’s play with a series of policy recommendations
    April 2012

 

 

 

 

Common Core Standards: Ten Colossal Errors — a solid article from edweek.org by Anthony Cody

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Error #1:
The process by which the Common Core standards were developed and adopted was undemocratic.  

At the state level in the past, the process to develop standards has been a public one, led by committees of educators and content experts, who shared their drafts, invited reviews by teachers, and encouraged teachers to try out the new standards with real children in real classrooms, considered the feedback, made alterations where necessary, and held public hearings before final adoption.

 The Common Core had a very different origin. When I first learned of the process to write new national standards underway in 2009, it was a challenge to figure out who was doing the writing.  I eventually learned that a “confidential” process was under way, involving 27 people on two Work Groups, including a significant number from the testing industry. Here are the affiliations of those 27: ACT (6), the College Board (6), Achieve Inc. (8), Student Achievement Partners (2), America’s Choice (2). Only three participants were outside of these five organizations. ONLY ONE classroom teacher WAS involved – on the committee to review the math standards.

Error #2:
The Common Core Standards violate what we know about how children develop and grow.

Error #4:
The Common Core creates a rigid set of performance expectations for every grade level, and results in tightly controlled instructional timelines and curriculum.

 At the heart of the Common Core is standardization.  Every student, without exception, is expected to reach the same benchmarks at every grade level. Early childhood educators know better than this. Children develop at different rates, and we do far more harm than good when we begin labeling them “behind” at an early age.

Error #6:
Proficiency rates on the new Common Core tests have been dramatically lower — by design.

 

From DSC:
I’m trying to give the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) a fair look/review/analysis.  But the statement under #4 strikes me as being particularly relevant and extremely true:

At the heart of the Common Core is standardization.  Every student, without exception, is expected to reach the same benchmarks at every grade level. Early childhood educators know better than this. Children develop at different rates, and we do far more harm than good when we begin labeling them “behind” at an early age.

Backing up a second and to let you know the “lenses” that I’m looking through…I believe that we have been incredibly designed and created by God, and God is extremely detail-oriented For purposes of time, consider just a few examples:

  • The incredible amount of intricacy in the human body — especially in the amazingly-complex human brain and what it can do
  • The vast amount of variety in our world and beyond — of people, landscapes, animals, birds, fish, planets, stars, etc.  A handful of pictures that focus just on flowers from Mr. Bill Vriesema’s Flickr account (with his permission) quickly illustrates this point:

 

BillVriesema-flower1

 

BillVriesema-flower2

 

BillVriesema-flower4

Again, my thanks go out to Mr. Bill Vriesema for the permission to use these photos
See http://www.flickr.com/photos/vreez/

 

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think those flowers look the same. I doubt they grew at exactly the same rate either. I doubt that they would grow the same ways in the exact same kind of soil.  Some would thrive…some would die (or should I say, “fall behind?”).

Likening this to each of us as individuals, we each have different gifts, abilities, interests, and passions.  We are not the same.  We don’t mature at the same rates.  And most of us don’t like to be controlled.  School is becoming too much about control and cramming students into certain man-made molds.  It seems to me that we are losing our way. Where’s the creativity, imagination, joy, wonder, excitement, and awe that should be inherent in learning about those things around us?

In fact, rewind to yesterday with me and allow me to bring this very close to home.

My son shared with me that he finds Sunday afternoons to be the most stressful, depressing days and times of the week.  Why? Because he hates school and he knows that’s coming up on Mondays.  Great. (And by the way, he’s a very smart young man.) 

I asked him what he would do differently if he were to design a new system.  He replied — without hesitation — “Allow me to choose what I want to learn and who I want to learn it from.”

So I then asked him, what if he could learn about how they negotiate contracts in the NFL…?  “YES! I’D LOVE THAT!” he said enthusiastically!

And here’s one of the very real problems that we, as a society, are facing:

  • We are no longer running a 100 yard dash; or even a 440 or an 880. We are running a marathon! That is, we need LIFELONG learners! People who constantly learn, reinvent themselves, keep growing, keep learning. 
  • We DO NOT need people who HATE to learn new things or have a really bad taste in their mouths about their educational experiences.

So my biggest concerns with the Common Core are that:

  • The Common Core State Standards are NOT helping us get to where we need to get to; if we are to use such mechanisms, then let’s add disciplines/areas of learning such as fine arts, music, drama, sports, woodworking, auto mechanics, and many other areas
  • The Common Core State Standards move us towards standardization and goes against how we were created — how we are made.
  • They do not help us run the required marathons that EACH OF US now find ourselves in!

As readers of this blog will know, I often embrace and even push change where it makes sense to do so. But when I hear that most of the public doesn’t have a clue as to what the Common Core State Standards even are — and despite where they came from and how they were developed — I get very nervous for the future of our youth and for our nation — and any other nation that follows such pathways of standardization.

I hope to have these fears assuaged — that such concerns are unfounded.  But right now, I’m having trouble seeing things that way.

 

 

Rebels on the edges — from Harold Jarche

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Today we are a witnessing a similar shift, as human information processing is being drastically surpassed by integrated technology systems. This has been called the second economy. I frequently discuss the implications of work automation on what is becoming a post-job economy. Consider that about 35% of existing jobs have a 85% or greater chance of being automated. The challenge we face is how to distribute wealth when capital accrues to the few and there is no need to hire as much labour to run that capital.

…we need to seriously reconsider how value, wealth, and economic independence can be achieved. The key is creativity. “Identifying the new” will be a critical skill. The creative economy will be led by people testing the limits of all fields of endeavour. This will be fueled by big (and distributed) data, in conjunction with networked people. Innovation will be so essential that it may no longer be discussed. Innovation and creativity will be the new literacies.

This is scary because most of our schools and other institutions do not foster innovation and creativity. I think many people will be left on the sidelines of the creative economy until we develop support systems that can help people tap their innate abilities that were ignored for much of the past century.

 

From DSC:
Thanks Harold for this valuable posting; a couple of thoughts came to my mind as a result of reading it.

I would feel much more settled about things like standardized testing and the Common Core if people could explain to me how such things foster the incredibly important characteristics such as creativity, innovation, teamwork, collaboration (some of the key items amongst the set of soft skills that companies are asking for).   I just don’t see it.  Also, the “A” part of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, & Math) is hard to measure on a standardized test.

We need to provide more choice, more control to students; to provide more chances for them to explore, investigate, and identify their interests and what they might be gifted in.  We need to provide more opportunities for students to tap into such gifts, abilities, and passions.

 

 

 

 

10 tools for classroom quizzes — from avatargeneration.com

From DSC:
I would also recommend looking at AllInLearning.com’s products/services for this sort of thing; they have apps for mobile devices as well as offering a clicker-based solution.

 

More items from avatargeneration.com:

 

The Invisible Achievement Gap, Part 1 – Education Outcomes of Students in Foster Care in California’s Public Schools — from cftl.org

 

From the email I rec’d on this:

The Invisible Achievement Gap, Part 1Education Outcomes of Students in Foster Care in California’s Public Schools is a first-of-its-kind analysis that links data from California’s education and child welfare systems for the 2009-10 academic year to create an education snapshot of K-12 students in foster care in California.  The report reveals a previously invisible achievement gap between children in foster care and other students, including other at-risk subgroups such as low-Socio-Economic Status (SES), English learners, and students with disabilities.  The research shows that students in foster care:

  • constituted an at-risk subgroup that was distinct from low-SES students.
  • were more likely than other students to change schools during the school year.
  • were more likely than the general population of students to be enrolled in the lowest-performing schools.
  • had the lowest participation rate in California’s statewide testing program.
  • showed an achievement gap in statewide tests when compared to other at-risk students.
  • had the highest dropout rate and lowest graduation rate.

The Invisible Achievement Gap is the result of a unique collaboration between the California Department of Education, the California Department of Social Services, the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning at WestEd, and other agencies.  Funded by the Stuart Foundation, the findings are particularly relevant and timely as California becomes the first state in the nation to attempt to track the academic progress of students in foster care as part of its new school finance reform plan. This research offers new evidence for policymakers to use in their continuing efforts to improve the academic success of students in foster care.

To learn more about the report or download it for free, please visit: http://cftl.org/What’s_New.htm

 

Content as a Service (CaaS) — from knowledgestarblog.wordpress.com by David Grebow

Excerpt:

The etextbook in 2018 will be dramatically different than the etextbook of today. It will be coupled to an app that will provide you with Content as a Service (CaaS). CaaS will include many of the following features (and more that have yet to be imagined):

  • Multimedia
  • Simulations
  • Educational Games
  • Animations
  • Pre- and post-tests
  • Formative and Summative Quizzes
  • Adaptive testing
  • Networked Social Learning
  • Study groups
  • Analytic Datasets
  • Virtual and Flipped classes
  • Communities of Learning and Practice
  • Virtual classes.

 

Also see:

.

ContentAsAService-Grebow-May2013

 
 

Turning Technologies acquires eInstruction— from turningtechnologies.com

Excerpt:

YOUNGSTOWN, OH – August 7, 2013 – Turning Technologies and eInstruction announced today that the companies have completed a process where Turning Technologies has acquired eInstruction.  eInstruction develops educational technology, including classroom instruction systems, student response systems, interactive whiteboards and assessment software that complement Turning’s existing product portfolio which enhances learning and presentation environments.  The acquisition will further Turning Technologies’ leading market position in the response system industry, providing a greater depth of products and technologies to more market segments.

 

In the future, the whole world will be a classroom — from fastcoexist.com by Marina Gorbis

 

TheFutureOfEducation-Gorbis-6-28-13

. TheFutureOfEducation3-Gorbis-6-28-13.

From DSC:
What Marina is asserting is what I’m seeing as well. That is, we are between two massive but different means of obtaining an education/learning (throughout our lifetimes I might add).  What she’s saying is also captured in the following graphic:

.

streams-of-content-blue-overlay

 

Also see:

 

Sir Ken Robinson on discovering your passions— from onpoint.wbur.org / NPR

Excerpt:

Currently Robinson’s not focusing just on children. His beat now is how we all can get more out of our lives if we hone in on our passions — that is, the things that really make us tick.

This hour, On Point: Letting your talents and passions transform your life.

 

From DSC:
I’m a big fan of Sir Ken Robinson’s work, perspectives, etc.    I’m not sure where Ken is on this, but ultimately, I attribute many of the things that he’s addressing to the gifts, talents, passions that the LORD gives to each of us.  In today’s culture, that might seem ridiculous; but it’s not to me.

 

 

From DSC:
1) To start out this posting, I want to pose some questions about “The Common Core” — in the form of a short video. <— NOTE:  Please be sure your speakers are on or you have some headphones with you — the signal is “hot” so you may need to turn down the volume a bit!  🙂

With a special thanks going out to
Mr. Bill Vriesema for sharing
some of his excellent gifts/work.

 .

DanielChristian-SomeQuestionsReTheCommonCore-June2013

 

.

Having asked those questions, I understand that there is great value in having students obtain a base level of knowledge — in reading, writing, and basic math.  (Should we add keyboarding? Programming? Other?  Perhaps my comments are therefore more appropriate for high school students…not sure.)

Anyway, I would be much more comfortable with moving forward with the Common Core IF:

* I walked into random schools and found out which teachers the students really enjoyed learning from and whom had a real impact on the learning of the students.  Once I identified that group of teachers, if 7-8 out of 10 of them gave the Common Core a thumbs up, so would I.

* The Common Core covered more areas — such as fine arts, music, drama, woodworking, videography, photography, etc.    (Just because STEM might drive the economic engines doesn’t mean everyone enjoys plugging into a STEM-related field — or is gifted in those areas.)

.

 


2) Secondly, here are just a few recent items re: the Common Core:


 

Good Read: Who’s Minding the Schools? — from blogs.kqed.org by Tina Barseghian

Excerpt: (emphasis DSC)

For those uninitiated to the Common Core State Standards, this New York Times article raises some important questions:

“By definition, America has never had a national education policy; this has indeed contributed to our country’s ambivalence on the subject… The anxiety that drives this criticism comes from the fact that a radical curriculum — one that has the potential to affect more than 50 million children and their parents — was introduced with hardly any public discussion. Americans know more about the events in Benghazi than they do about the Common Core.”

.

The Common Core Standards

 

.

Editorial: Make the Common Core standards work before making them count — from eschoolnews.com by Randi Weingarten
AFT President Randi Weingarten calls for a moratorium on the high-stakes implications of Common Core testing until the standards have been properly implemented.

.

How to train students’ brains for the Common Core — from ecampusnews.com by Meris Stansbury
Excerpt:

According to Margaret Glick, a neuroscience expert and educational consultant at the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE), the Common Core State Standards and the accompanying assessments will cognitively require more than past standards. “They will require a deep understanding of content, complex performances, real-world application, habits of mind to persevere, higher levels of cognition and cognitive flexibility,” Glick said during “The Common Core State Standards and the Brain,” a webinar sponsored by the Learning Enhancement Corporation.

.

Common Core testing will require digital literacy skills — from ecampusnews.com by Dennis Pierce
Excerpt:

It also will require students to demonstrate certain digital literacy skills that go beyond the core curriculum, observers say. These include technology operational skills such as keyboarding and spreadsheets, as well as higher-order skills such as finding and evaluating information online. And many observers have serious concerns about whether students will be ready to take the online exams by the 2014-15 school year.

 

Minn. moves ahead with some Common Core education standards — from minnesota.publicradio.org by Tim Post

 

Carry the Common Core in Your Pocket! — from appolearning.com by Monica Burns

Excerpt:

Whether you are a parent or educator, you have likely heard the buzz around the Common Core Learning Standards. Here’s the deal.

Across the United States schools are adopting these national standards to prepare students for college and careers by introducing rigorous content to children in all subject areas. The standards cover students in Kindergarten through Grade 12 in English Language Arts and Mathematics. The Common Core Standards app by MasteryConnect organizes the CCLS for students, parents and teachers with mobile devices.

 

 

Addendum on 6/19/13:

Addendum on 6/27/13: 

 

Studying learning in the worldwide classroom: Research into edX’s first MOOC — from Research & Practice in Assessment (Volume Eight | Summer 2013) by Lori Breslow, David E. Pritchard, Jennifer DeBoer, Glenda S. Stump, Andrew D. Ho and Daniel T. Seaton — with thanks to Debbie Morison for pointing this out on her blog

 

Also see:

.

MOOCResearch-June2013

 
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