It’s About Learning

In Seth Godin’s recent book, Tribes  he writes about people who work in a balloon  factory as being timid and afraid. They are very concerned about pins, needles, echidnas, and sudden changes in temperature. While there is a bit of a rush around New Year’s, the work is essentially quiet and peaceful. Except when the unicorns show up. The balloon factory workers shush the unicorn and shoo it away, but sometimes the unicorn ignores them and wanders into the factory anyway. That’s when everyone runs for cover.

From time to time, someone invents a product with an unforeseen and massive impact on society. The Chinese discovered paper, a Benedictine monk created the clock to regulate prayer, and a German goldsmith used the design of wine-making presses to invent moveable type. When the printing press was introduced more than 500 years ago it brought about a social revolution in the Western world. So ingrained is this print worldview that we are often unaware of the hold it has on our minds. For example, print helped to construct our notions of individuality and the community (notions not always shared by Asian cultures). Our mindsets have been shaped by progress, the linearity of print text, and the Eurocentric prejudice, shaped by centuries of economic and cultural dominance, that truth or best practice lies within our own cultural tradition. This paradigm is now being challenged.

The huge difference between what happened in Gutenberg’s time and what’s happening today is that today it is happening in fast-forward. Expectations are that over the next 20 years bandwidth speed will increase by in excess of one billion times and Wi-Max is on the way – close to fibre speed wireless through the air continuously. The technological transformations of the past 10,000 years will be dwarfed by the transformations we will experience in the next three years and Google is in the midst of constructing a personalised information system which will provide access to an unimaginable breadth and depth of information.

The transformation of education from a book-based system to an internet-based system holds profound implications for classroom pedagogy, but the power of technology is being constrained to work alongside curriculum firmly fixed in the working practices of an earlier age – high levels of memory skills, instruction and pen and paper dexterity. Confining these technologies to the teacher-centred model of education is akin to putting a rocket engine on the back of a horse.

Effectively integrating new technology into educational practice is a process of reflecting on how technology-enhanced practices challenge assumptions about what we teach, how we teach, why we teach, and who we teach. Our job is not to be experts in technology, our job is to be experts in learning. There is no evidence to suggest that technology improves learning, but we know that technology does improve learning when it is utilised by good teachers.

We are the compliant offspring of the Industrial Age, when predictability and standardisation were valued. But how worthwhile is teaching and testing for knowledge that can often be obtained from a five minute Google search? While few teachers would argue that education is about accumulating large repertoires of facts, this is overwhelmingly what happens in classrooms. Today’s adventurous, independent learners are a very different breed from the children who sat quietly in their ordered rows, worked from their books and relied upon their teachers for information. As Will Richardson at Connective Learning cites:

 “…while N-Gens interact with the world through multimedia, online social networking, and routine multitasking, their professors tend to approach learning linearly, one task at a time, and as an individual activity that is centered largely around printed text…Not having been raised in the world of the N-Gen student, then, presents some significant challenges for faculty members who must attempt to address the needs of a learning style they have never experienced, may know little about, and may be unable to comprehend fully because of their different skills in processing information…a collection of images on Flickr with authorial comments and tags certainly does not resemble the traditional essay, but the time spent on such a project, the motivation for undertaking it, and its ability to communicate meaning can certainly be equal to the investment and motivation required by the traditional essay—and the photos may actually provide more meaningful communication for their intended audience.”

While equating essay writing with a collection of photos makes the blood boil, the point is that we can teach differently now and the biggest shift is the move away from individual knowledge to distributed knowledge built on collaboration. Schools cannot remain the cloistered little empires that they have become. With the growing availability of tools to connect learners and teachers, teaching is transcending borders. We can easily invite the world’s greatest teachers into our classrooms and there is now no excuse for not bringing expert voices into our classrooms via technology. My Year 9 class recently held a Skype link-up with a Turkish school to discuss perspectives of the Gallipoli campaign. The students were struck by the conditions on the Turkish homefront during the war and the impact of the war of women and children. It is just a matter of time until Australian students are producing a shared Web 2.0 history of World War II with Japanese students.

Check out the blog of TeachPaperless. His Latin students take tests online via their blogs, using online dictionaries, and using Twitter as a place to help one another through the test. Each student translates a different section of the text and there is a requirement for students to participate in the Tweets. Students receive two grades: one for their individual work and one for their helping other students and taking an engaged and active role in the Tweets.

A Personal Learning Network of RSS feeds, social networking sites, and blogs is becoming essential for educators as an intergral part of daily learning and thinking. Google Reader keeps track of all my favourite education blogs and Twitter is a learning tool that allows frequent updates of only 140 characters each to be broadcast. It is not as intrusive as e-mail and it is quick to scan. I can get answers to almost any question in seconds and tweets are usually made up of useful links and great articles. If I am passed a great resource, I look at it and immediately store it for later reference and use. Look me up on Twitter (cpaterso) and join the conversations.

Teaching revolves around community building and we now have the means to collaborate and share responsibility more than ever before. The unicorn is in the balloon factory.

On Monday Greg Whitby, Executive Director of Schools, Diocese of Parramatta presented to our staff, making the following key points:

1.       Schools risk irrelevancy. Kids now simply expect to operate in a connected environment and there is little sense in schools banning mobile phones, which are often more powerful than the technology available in schools.

2.       Beware of conformity. One size never fits all.

3.       Learning is optional in schools, whereas attendance is compulsory. Could it be reversed so that learning is compulsory and attendance optional?

4.       A major shift is occurring from having the focus on the teacher to having the focus on the learner. We need to start where the students are, with what they can do. He described this as ‘the dying end of slavery’.

5.       The teacher in the classroom is critical and we need to continually improve our practice.

6.       We lack innovation and creativity, and we will only get this by allowing teachers to take more responsibility.

7.       We are co-constructors of knowledge with our students and we need to begin viewing our schools less as classrooms and more as performance spaces.

The reaction from the staff was mixed. Some found the presentation inspiring (typically ELC-6 staff and newer senior school staff?) and others found it confronting. Staff from the ELC commented, “Truly inspiring. The whole ELC team has spoken positively of their experiences and discussions they had. It has left us wanting more. I feel its a very exciting time in education. We certainly will be talking, questioning and reflecting on our practices and viewing our ELC through a different lense.”

Article written for Directions in Education:

Students who achieve well on narrow tests might not be our most resilient learners. By this time next year, Year 12 will have forgotten most of the content they are being taught this year. This should lead us to ask questions about what knowledge and skills we should be teaching and how we should test them (Daily Telegraph 17/12/08).

Gordon Stanley has warned against following the British and US examples of overtesting students and setting performance benchmarks that narrow the curriculum. “Testing is really only valuable in so far as it provides timely feedback that will help the teachers working with their students…Increasingly the research evidence suggests that the delay between testing and the feedback is critical in terms of developing student skills” (SMH, 26/3/09).

In the meantime, Second Life and podcasts are changing the way education is delivered. Students now regularly access materials online and interact with other students in discussion boards. Virtual worlds, mobile phones, wikis and blogs are creating dynamic learning environments. “People teaching language do really good things where they send students to another part of the campus and they have to dial their partner and describe where they are in English” (SMH, 2/3/09).

However members of the Net Generation often do not know how to utilise technology to optimise their learning and ICT can be counter-productive if it takes the place of complex thinking. Dr Mubarak Ali from Flinders University has found that internet addiction is a real consequence of too many hours online and it will soon be classified as a mental disorder. Oxford University neuroscientist Susan Greenfield warns that social networking sites can “effectively rewire children’s synapses, ‘infantilising’ the brain and eroding attention-span and empathy.” The consequence is that “the mid-21^st century mind might almost be infantilised, characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity.” (SMH, 4/4/09) 

Advert from Apple that makes a great point about innovators.

Crazy Ones

This very brief video of Question Time from an audience in Britain makes a great point. Any relevance to the classroom?

Power or Office?

I have no trouble getting my head around the importance of visual literacy, but the term ‘New Humanities’ doesn’t quite fit right… Rutgers University

Another gem from Seth Godin http://www.amazon.com/Tribes-We-Need-You-Lead/dp/1591842336

He writes about rock climber Chris Sharma.

“Chris changed the rules of an entire sport and, along the way, influenced the way tens of thousands of people think about personal achievement. For hundred of years, rock climbers followed a simple principle: one foot and one hand on the wall at all times.  If you’re anchored with two out of your limbs, you can do a pretty good Spiderman imitation without risking your life.  Right left right left, up you go, little risk, plenty of progress.

Instead of staying glued to the wall, Chris jumps. It’s called a dyno.  Chris didn’t invent the dyno, but he certainly pushed it further than anyone ever expected it could go.  Chris can climb routes that were previously deemed impossible.  When he gets to a dead end, he looks up and jumps.  No legs, no arms.  Just air.  Straight up, two or three or four feet, grabbing a small clump of rock with two fingers, and continuing his climb.

For a while, this was controversial.  It wasn’t right.  It was risky.  And then, bit by bit, the guys in the factory came around.  They discovered that it was a reasonable (but surprising) solution to a large number of rock-climbing problems.  Suddenly, impossible routes weren’t impossible any longer…The lesson isn’t that you need to risk your fingers (not to mention your life) on a rock.  The lesson is that one person with a persistent vision can make change happen, whether climbing rocks or delivery services.” (pp65-7)

In Seth Godin’s book Tribes he defines sheepwalking as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them brain-dead jobs and enough fear to keep them in line. How many sheepwalkers do you work with? Seth writes

“Training a student to be a sheep is a lot easier than the alternative.  Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behaviour, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school.  So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep?”

Embrace nonsheep behaviour and reward it.

Creative thinking

Nice slideshare presentation

How People Learn: A Summary

Exciting research about the mind, the brain, and the processes of learning draws implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what is learned. Evidence from this research indicates that when the following three principles are incorporated into teaching, student achievement improves:

Principle 1  

Learning is enhanced when learning opportunities are tailored to individuals’ current levels of readiness.  

“There is a good deal of evidence that learning is enhanced when teachers pay attention to the knowledge and beliefs that learners bring to the learning task, use this knowledge as a starting point for new instruction, and monitor students’ changing conceptions as instruction proceeds.” Bransford, Brown and Cocking (2000)

Therefore to improve student learning, teachers must tailor their efforts to what students already know and can do, and their interests. This means that teachers need to find these things out for individual learners. However, teachers often lack the time and skills required to identify individual learning needs because of pressure to cover the curriculum, some philosophical opposition to differentiated instruction, and the fact that they are dealing with widely dispersed levels of attainment.

Principle 2 

Learning is more effective when it leads to deep understandings of subject matter.

“One of the hallmarks of the new science of learning is its emphasis on learning with understanding.” (Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 2000)

The learning of facts and procedures is very important. However, the teaching of disconnected knowledge undermines understanding and does not help students learn when and how to apply what they learn. Underlying concepts and principles give meaning to knowledge and help learners to organise what they are learning and to understand the contexts to which their knowledge can be applied. Therefore to improve student learning, teachers must develop students’ understandings of key concepts and principles, providing multiple examples of how what they are learning can be applied. This requires a deepening of the knowledge base and the development of a conceptual framework for subject matter. Unfortunately teachers too often lack the depth of content knowledge required for such highly effective teaching.

Principle 3

Learning is more effective when learners are supported to monitor and take responsibility for their own learning.  

Learning is motivated more by a desire to understand and to acquire new skills than to satisfy somebody else’s expectations. Students are encouraged to take responsibility for their own progress; and assessment is used not merely to establish whether students have learnt what teachers have taught, but to identify starting points for learning and to provide feedback to student learning. Therefore to improve student learning, teachers must create classroom learning cultures in which  there is a belief in every student’s ability to learn, individuals feel supported to take risks, teachers provide timely and useful feedback, and students monitor their own learning over time. Currently classroom learning often is driven less by curiosity than by external demands, and teachers often lack the time and skills to provide individualised feedback to guide learning.

The report also indicates that assessment must be expanded beyond the traditional concept of testing to make use of frequent formative assessment to make students’ thinking visible, and assessments must tap understanding rather than merely the ability to repeat facts or perform isolated skills. It also finds that the teaching of metacognative skills should be integrated into the curriculum. And, the report indicates that superficial coverage of all topics must be replaced with in-depth coverage of fewer topics that allows key concepts to be understood.

It is particularly important for teachers to promote these principles as we head towards a national curriculum.

Reference

Bransford, J. Brown, A, Cocking, R. (eds.), How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, 2000, National Academy Press, Washington.