Learning Facilitators

I am blogging from the SXSWEdu conference. Wow! Such a wonderful gathering of creative, committed, and passionate educators in one place. I have been hearing many amazing things--mostly being plugged into the conversation happening around student voice. On twitter check out #StuVoice and #studentvoice to catch up.

Highlights include:

• The Pearson Foundation's announcement of Project MASH: a social network that brings students, educators, and research together in a place that leverages the best of what we know about new pedagogies. Be the source!
• Being part of a webinar on Student Voice with Zak Malamed, student voice champion, and Adam Ray, of the Pearson Foundation. It was a privilege to be part of an ongoing dialogue dedicated to the expanding movement that is student voice.
• Learning about Next Lessons from CEO Dion Lim--a website filled with best practices aligned to common core for all grade levels in all subjects.
• Brainstorming with educators from Eanes ISD in Austin who, knowing they already have a very successful school system, want to take things to yet another, higher level. I was inspired by their willingness to continue to learn and grow despite their 98% college enrollment rate.
• Meeting Adora Svitlak and Nikhil Goyal, whose videos and insights we share in the field as outstanding examples of the thoughtfulness of young people calling for change. They are not the leaders of tomorrow, they are the leaders of today!
• Attending a panel discussion with Zak, Nikhil, Adora and four other students. They led an interactive session that drove towards solutions for several of the challenges in education today--including having more young people at SXSWEdu in the future!

At this last session, I met Tom Rooney, Superintendent of the Lindsay Unified School District in California. He didn't sugar coat it or pretend that they weren't still a work in progress at five years into their change efforts, but from the little I heard about LUSD, they get my vote for being on a short, yet growing list of schools that are getting it most right. Visit the website and judge for yourself.

I want to make note of one thing they do that is subtle, but extremely significant and easily adoptable: They have turned away from the term "teachers" and refer instead to "learning facilitators." As someone who loves language and words, I love this shift. I also know it is not mere semantics, but a reflection of an approach to education I believe we all need to accept if schools are going to be engaging and relevant to today's learners. 

In other words, the truth of the matter must become that the only thing that distinguishes the adult learners in a school from the young learners is that the former bear a responsibility for organizing, encouraging, supporting, and resourcing educational experiences. This simple change in words implies that LUSD is not teacher-centered or content-centered, or even student-centered, but learning-centered. It communicates that learning is life-long, that even the most educated among the adults are not finished learning, and that together young people and adults can be partners and co-creators of educational experiences.

Thank you to all whom I encountered at SXSWEdu this week for facilitating my learning!

The Predictive Value of Doing Well on Tests

Zero. ICYMI that was the assessment Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of people operations for Google, gave of the value of a student's GPA to predict their ability to succeed at Google. Actually, in Thomas Friedman's recent article on How to Get a Job at Google, the word he used was "worthless."  So much for GPA, AP, AYP, SAT, ACT, ETC.

Surely there are other (though maybe not cooler) places to work than Google, but the point of Mr. Friedman's article is the disconnect between what schools focus on and the lessons needed for those seeking jobs today. The role of content knowledge makes the list, but it is 5th of 5 characteristics. In order of importance, he lists them as:

1. Learning Ability
2. Emergent Leadership
3. Humility
4. Ownership
5. Expertise

The ability to learn is a desirable commodity in a world where knowledge is easy to come by. Consider this: How would allowing students access to the internet change the kinds of questions you asked on a test or final exam? Whatever ability enables them to search, vet, and then create a compelling or creative argument to answer the question will make them much more employable in a world in which anyone can know anything at anytime.

Emergent leadership is not about the role playing that is being president of a club or captain of team. It is about knowing when to step up because one's particular skills and talents are required to move a project or idea or class or school forward. And similarly when one should sit down to make room for another's talents and skills. Humility, therefore, is also a desirable trait. 

Putting together Emergent Leadership and Humility with Ownership is equivalent to QISA's 7th Condition of Leadership & Responsibility. Students must not only be allowed to make decisions as emergent leaders, but also to accept full responsibility for the decisions they make. These qualities are not personality traits, they are  a set of skills that can be learned and nurtured. 

Apparently, the least important quality Google looks for is expertise. The thing the most time and energy is expended on in schools: Have you mastered math? Have you mastered science? Have you mastered the Great Gatsby? Have you mastered the U.S. Constitution? according to Mr. Bock is the very thing that should take up the least amount of our time and energy.

The take away is this: It's not that traditional measures of success are not at all important; it's that they are not nearly as important as we continue to make them out to be. In perspective, doing well in school--as schools traditionally measure "well"--is fine. However, there are several other more important skills schools should be working on that would serve students better than getting As and Bs. We know how to cultivate Expertise in schools. How do we cultivate Learning Ability, Emergent Leadership in all students, Humility, and a sense of Ownership?

Pudding

Anyone who reads this blog (anyone? anyone? Bueller?), knows that I am not a huge fan of bubble tests. They have their place in educational assessment, but that place is a fairly narrow one. It is a far cry from the be-all-and-end-all that they have become as a measure of success at the school, classroom, and individual level. If we really want to know all the "adequate yearly progress" a school makes with its students (and not just their left frontal lobes), we will need to measure many, many more things than reading and math scores. If we really want to know the value a teacher adds over the course of the year, we will need tools that measure engagement and love of reading as much as reading skill level. If we really want to know what a student has learned after a week, a unit, or finally, a year, they will need to make the pudding and we will need to eat it.

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating," as the original saying goes. In other words, the real test of anyone's knowledge is in its demonstration and application, not its merely academic (see meanings 3 and 4) performance on a test. Rather than write an essay, write something worthy of being published in a newspaper or magazine. Rather than read a short story and prove that you have comprehended it by choosing one of four right answers on a standardized test, read a short story and produce a YouTube video of the same themes in a different genre (e.g., if it was sci-fi making it a vampire movie, if it was drama make it comedy, etc.) Number of views can be part of the assessment rubric. Rather than complete a math worksheet for homework, plan, operate, and run a small fundraiser for a local charity.

This is why real world learning holds such promise for the future of education. I have recently been learning about Michael Fullan and Maria Langworthy's New Pedagogies for Deep Learning. This is indeed the direction we need to be heading. Getting out of the school building, both to learn and to prove that one has learned, is a welcome change from the cycle of tests that prove only that you can move on to the next level to take more tests. The proof of the learning is in the doing.

s NO w Days

The number of school cancellations because of snow and cold across the country seems at an all time high. One district we work with had snow days tacked on to their holiday break and did not have school for a total of three weeks. Even schools in the south have been closed by weather this year. The steady rhythm of the school week has been regularly disrupted each week with a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday off. It's pretty difficult to hit a teaching or learning stride when its. M T W off F off off...

Under all the snow lies a fundamental assumption that needs to be dug out: That learning is something that only takes place in a school building. No school, no learning. But that's a snow-job, right? This same assumption is what makes the summer break a problem and it's what lies behind issues with homework. Somehow we have sent the message that if you are not in school, in a classroom with 25 other students and a teacher; if the bells are not ringing and their are no desks in rows; then the only thing to do is hangout, play video games, or watch TV.

Blended learning is beginning to melt that assumption. Now what we need is a blended learning plan for time off we can't plan for. We need to let students know before the first flake falls that on a school day when there is no school it does not mean there will be no learning. In it's simplest form students can be expected to learn as much as there is to learn about snow and weather and the Polar Vortex. But it is also not out of the realm of possibilities (access to technology would be an obvious concern), that teachers would have an e-learning plan to use the Internet, Skype, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media to interact with students and keep the learning happening.  I am not suggesting a full on 6 hours of teaching and learning, but teachers can plan at home learning experiences that keep up the learning even as the snow comes down.

Olympic Opportunity

We are just 8 days away from the Winter Olympics. How exciting. Human beings at the top of their game testing themselves against one another in a spirit of friendly competition. I have always enjoyed both summer and winter Olympics. Not just because I love sports, but because I love drama. One hundredth of a second can mean the difference between medaling or not. Teenagers competing for the first time; veterans possibly for the last. Stunning. Sometimes scandalous. It's all there.

Which is why it is perfect learning material for your classroom in February. Need numbers to crunch? There will be plenty: From averaging skating scores to calculating the engineering in the bobsled run or the trajectory of a ski jump. Need stuff to read? Besides the blogs and the newspaper columns and magazine articles, there are dozens of biographies and human interest stories surrounding these Olympians and those of the past. Social Studies? We have been reading about the political situation in Russia daily and are hoping for a safe winter games, but what is going on that there is this level of concern? How do different countries choose and prepare their athletes? How do all these countries come together peacefully? What happened when Nazi Germany was host? Which Olympics has the United States boycotted and why? And science?! Do you want physics? Biology? Chemistry? It's all there.

One of the complaints we hear from students all the time is that they see no connection between school and their everyday lives. Given the fact that at least watching the Olympics will be part of most students' everyday lives in the next couple of weeks, teachers have a rare opportunity for material that is both inspiring and engaging. When a student has to investigate the variations in a figure skater's heart rate during competition, comment on a blog in French written by a French Canadian athlete, calculate the best angle for a speed skater to enter a turn, or read and report on the politics surrounding the Jamaican luge team...wow! It's all there.

I challenge you to spend the next week designing at least one lesson that connects what your students have to learn because it is based on some mandated rubric or pacing guide and the winter games. Post your ideas in the comments below, on QISA's Facebook page, or tweet it to @qisatweets and we will award gold, silver, and bronze medals for the best ideas. It will all be here.

Shark Zone

A friend of mine has a son in 6th grade. Let's call him Jacques. Bright. Curious. Cautious, but not risk averse. A bit shy, but not withdrawn. The type of middle schooler who takes awhile to warm up to people, but once he does will engage in great conversation.

Recently Jacques was given an independent research project. Something with sharks. In his wheelhouse. His research was thorough and excellent. He actually read books, not just wikipedia! My friend said he went at the project with enthusiasm as well as intellectual wonder. So far so good. No sweat.

Part of the assessment was a formal presentation to his classmates and teachers. Jacques had to dress up. Create a powerpoint. It was video-taped. Not as easy as actually doing the research and writing a report, but doable even for someone a little on the shy side. The internal resources were available, they just had to be mustered. A little perspiration can be good for kids.

But another part of the assessment was a presentation in front of parents. Note, this was not "extra credit." There was no choice or flexibility. This was part of the rubric the teacher had created that would be included in the final grade for the project. A presentation in front of mostly strangers. Nice strangers, no doubt, but people Jacques didn't know. He sweated this big time.

Not every challenge is appropriate for every student. The effective stretching of our students depends upon knowing them well enough to begin from where they are and tug at them with expectations just enough out of reach that they grow. Students--like all of us--have a Comfort Zone, a Challenge Zone, and a Panic Zone. Part of teaching is making sure students do not work only in their Comfort Zone, absolutely. We hear a lot these days about the importance of "grit" in education. I am all for it. But learning cannot take place in the Panic Zone.

In the comfort of the research, Jacques learned about sharks. In the challenge of the classroom presentation, Jacques learned an even more important lesson about himself. In the panic of the seemingly shark-infested parent presentation, through which he fumbled and stumbled and nearly shut down, Jacques learned nothing.

Don't Turn Your Back

One of my favorite things about visiting our schools in the South is how polite the students are.  Today, during our focus groups in South Carolina, the middle school boys I talked with peppered their responses with "Yes, sir"s and "No, sir"s. They shook my hand on the way in and the way out. They looked me in the eye when they answered. They interrupted each other in the excitement to give answers, but never interrupted me, and always stopped talking over each other when I asked them to.

One of the questions I asked about was respect for teachers.  In this particular school, the total in agreement for "Teachers respect students" on their My Voice survey was 43%.  Interestingly, on the My Voice staff survey, the total in agreement for "Students respect me" was 84%.  This gap in perception is actually not atypical.  Teachers perceive more respect from students than students say actually exists.

When I asked the students what respectful behavior towards a teacher looked like, they described the same overt behaviors I experienced:  Being polite, following teacher instructions, not disrupting the class.  When I asked what disrespectful behavior toward a teacher looked like, they described why there is a gap in perception on this issue: Making faces after a teacher leaves, eye rolls when they turn their back, cussing at a teacher under your breath so students can hear but not the teacher. Respect is what happens to a teacher's face, disrespect is what happens behind her back.

I guess that is not so surprising. Besides never turning our back on students, what is to be done? Modeling is a start. Stephen Covey writes about the importance of "Loyalty to those who are not present." How are teachers with that? Another solution is to build relationships with students.  Students are not disrespectful to teachers they believe respect and care about them.  In fact, they report getting on other students who are disrespectful to such teachers.

When students become your allies in correcting unwanted behaviors it no longer matters if your back is turned.