tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67710287625242085132023-06-20T05:36:53.352-08:00Teaching in the 21st CenturyAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07634416691679674657noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771028762524208513.post-7685032984757837942015-03-11T12:42:00.002-08:002015-03-11T19:14:23.367-08:00Killing them Softly IV: Unnecessarily Stressed to the Max<h3>
In April of 2007, <a href="http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N21/jones.html" target="_blank">MIT Dean of Admissions, Marilee Jones, resigned</a> after evidence came forward that she had lied on her resume 28 years prior. This Sunday, <a href="http://goo.gl/vW4nb2" target="_blank">I listened as Ms. Jones</a> discussed her experience, examined the act of lying and the pressures she feels led to it, and lamented about how the college admissions process is setting our students up to either crush themselves while adolescents or lie to achieve admission.</h3>
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I teach high school. I taught middle school for seven years. At the middle school level, we taught students that responsibility was very important when they got to high school and that they needed to practice that responsibility while they had the support of the middle school model. Now that I am teaching high school, that message seems like a lie. The students I work with in high school need that support more than ever, but are left to contend with their own survival in an environment that pretends to have all of the answers about a world separated from them by large brick walls.</h3>
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<br />There is a systematic problem with what we communicate about the real world to our students and our children. I do not know where it originates, but this is an attempt to find some line of reasoning that pressures us into destroying the psyches of our youth. Yes, some thrive in the environment I am about to present, much like some <a href="http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/astrobiology/environments/" target="_blank">bacteria thrive in the harshest of places</a>. The real question lies in whether we want to create educational environments and philosophies focused on the success of extremophiles while crushing our other students.</h3>
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<br />Whether it is reality or not, students I have taught both as eighth-graders and juniors paint an interesting picture of what they think is required of them to get to college. Some might argue that their perception doesn't always meet reality, but please remember that it is their reality based upon information they receive from teachers, administrators, and parents.</h3>
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<br />They feel that they need the following to be accepted into college:<br />-Stacked AP courses with high scores on AP tests<br />-Higher than 4.0 GPA<br />-Multiple extra-curricular athletic activities<br />-Multiple extra-curricular non-athletic activities<br />-Participation in leadership roles in the school<br />-Multiple community service experiences<br />-Occupational experiences<br />-High scores on high stakes tests<br />-Others to include portfolios and evidence for all above</h3>
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<br />We as adults can look at this on paper and believe that all of these are great opportunities to create a well-rounded individual who will succeed in a globally competitive market. <a href="http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/stress-talk.aspx" target="_blank">We also ignore what it is doing to them</a> and instead focus on teaching them to deal with the stress involved. At some point, we have to look at the cause of the problem instead of which bandage we use to cover it.</h3>
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<br />Consider, for example, all of the time spent to meet the criteria laid out above. If a student is taking four or even five AP courses, it is likely that each of those classes come with at least an hour of homework. That doesn't seem like a lot on the surface, but based on <a href="http://goo.gl/BR4zuR" target="_blank">yesterday's post</a>, how many people reading now are willing to add another five hours of work related to what you did at a desk for seven or eight hours? Now, add that to the time spent at swimming practice or basketball practice, debate, volunteer tutoring, time in churches, working a coffee stand, online classes, ACT/SAT prep, and the added responsibilities of chores from parents and family obligations. It seems so easy to assign an hour of homework as a single teacher, but rarely are all of these areas considered when thinking of the small pool of time available to these students. It again forces us to question the true purpose of education.</h3>
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<br />The act of writing the paragraph above spiked my adrenaline and heart rate; I cannot imagine living it while negotiating the unavoidable social expectations that adolescents must deal with simply due to the natural activity in their bodies and brains.</h3>
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<br />This is the part where parents and teachers (adults nostalgic about their own experiences) point out that this is merely a path certain students choose and that they should be ready for the stress. I would argue that the very students who choose this path would do just as well in their careers and lives if they dropped the AP courses, forgot about the added criteria, and played outside for three or four hours a day. However, as people who have reinforced our dominance upon children for their entire lives, we tell them daily that their futures matter more than their present. Most believe us, and we harshly punish those who don't.</h3>
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<br />I hate to be redundant, so I will link a different story from a different perspective which restates a message from yesterday. <a href="http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/does-it-matter-where-you-go-to-college/comment-page-3/?_r=0" target="_blank">Our children don't have to attend top schools to be successful</a>! In fact, the stress related to getting there could do more damage than the education they would receive is worth.</h3>
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<br />That was just the stress side of this evil coin. Let's move onto what we are teaching our children, and what they learn from this environment.</h3>
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<br />Meeting the list above does not teach our children how to learn, give back, belong, or fulfill their basic and advanced needs. The criteria, the lack of time to meet it, and the stress it creates do nothing more than train our children how to anxiously accomplish simple tasks. That is the only way to manage all of the data and all of the experiences needed for what we call high school success. We are teaching them how to go through the motions. We are teaching them to submit to a system that will work them to the very break of their emotional core in order to fulfill a false mythology of success being measured by where one went to school and how large their wallet is.</h3>
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<br />It cuts even deeper when we look at the <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/02/349863761/40-years-of-income-inequality-in-america-in-graphs" target="_blank">reality of our nation</a> at this time in history and truly deal with the fact that we are putting our children through this stress so they may fight each other and their own health to grab at the copper coins falling from the purses of the <a href="http://fortune.com/2014/10/31/inequality-wealth-income-us/" target="_blank">incredibly wealthy</a>. It doesn't matter what political ideology we prescribe to, the numbers are undeniable.</h3>
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<br />Our nation has an ever-increasing acceptance of <a href="http://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics" target="_blank">anxiety and depression</a> in our lives. Through our current perspective on education, higher education, and career decisions, we are passing this legacy onto our children at even <a href="http://www.adaa.org/living-with-anxiety/children" target="_blank">higher rates</a>.</h3>
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<br />What I do not understand is our willingness to ignore the data. The information is here. It is not hidden. We know what is good and bad for the organism. We know that the best situation for our nation's economy is to be a powerhouse of creative ideas, yet we continue to perpetuate a system that trains our children not to think through problems and understand concepts with deep, abstract understanding supported by concrete experiences. We instead force mountains of time-consuming busy work upon them which teaches that education and learning is hard, mundane, and about three decades behind what they want to be doing in their garage, like building and programing robots.</h3>
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<br />Is it any wonder they would rather check out and play a game? Is it any wonder they would look for meaning in social media? What do we have to offer them? Is it any wonder half of them spite us, a quarter of them fear us, and the rest play the game perfectly because they realize it's a game? They are smart, in their own way.</h3>
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<br />We are, in essence, telling our adolescents that all of their activities as teens are only as valuable as they look on a resume. This discounts the very benefits we tell them they have as teenagers with no real responsibilities. I cannot imagine living with that confusion.</h3>
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<br />Check back in tomorrow. I will discuss the actions we take and the money we spend to simply counter a problem we have created by adding this stress on our students. Feel free to comment, email me at <a href="mailto:leejosephbutterfield@gmail.com">leejosephbutterfield@gmail.com</a>, or friend/follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lee.butterfield" target="_blank">Facebook</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/ButterfieldP1" target="_blank">Twitter</a> or <a href="https://plus.google.com/" target="_blank">google+</a>.</h3>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07634416691679674657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771028762524208513.post-84477605522316089052015-03-10T16:07:00.000-08:002015-03-10T16:09:07.188-08:00Killing Them Softly, Episode Three: Revenge of the HierarchyDid you all do your <a href="http://youtu.be/yM8SwZkvCIY" target="_blank">homework</a>? Perhaps you needed a <a href="http://youtu.be/EH04OsNuvcw" target="_blank">shorter version</a>.<br />
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Of course you didn't, and if you did it was because the topic interested you. In no way would watching one of these two videos or reading <a href="http://www.altruists.org/static/files/A%20Theory%20of%20Human%20Motivation%20%28A.%20H.%20Maslow%29.pdf" target="_blank">21 pages about human needs</a> better your income level or satisfaction with life when<a href="http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70178217?locale=en-US" target="_blank"> Frank Underwood</a> was available at the click of a button or tap of a finger. I don't blame you. Why then would I blame my students?<br />
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Let's run a quick set of scenarios to get this party started.<br />
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A well-adjusted adult, let's call him Arthur, wakes up in the morning to the sound of an aggressive alarm. He then spends twenty-some minutes preparing himself for a day at work. Due to traffic, he takes a piece of toast for the road or waits twenty-some more minutes in line for coffee and a stale pastry. Upon entering work, Arthur sits at his desk for <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/05/14/u-s-productivity-putting-in-all-those-hours-doesnt-matter/" target="_blank">seven to ten hours</a>, moving papers from one side of the desk to the other. Sometimes he puts them into new folders, does a math problem with a ten-key on his computer, makes some copies, and organizes his paperclips. He also takes several brain breaks by checking his social media account, losing a game of <a href="http://www.triviacrack.com/" target="_blank">Trivia Crack</a>, or complaining about the amount of work he still has to finish. When the work day is over, Arthur feels drained. He and his working partner travel home to face the challenges of cooking, cleaning, taking care of the needs of their family, and organizing bits of paper needing signatures so that their money can transfer into the hands of others to ensure that he and his family are warm and fed. Now it is time for Arthur to do his homework.<br />
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Depending on Arthur's financial status, this reality splits into two.<br />
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If Arthur makes enough money that his family is fed, his house is comfortable, and he is ultimately happy with his place in life and society, Arthur's homework may be learning to <a href="http://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc?t=6m44s" target="_blank">play guitar</a>, or to paint. Maybe he will tinker with a <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/help/what-is-a-raspberry-pi/" target="_blank">Raspberry Pi</a> with his children in the garage. Arthur's homework will be based on either gaining <a href="http://youtu.be/yM8SwZkvCIY?t=9m36s" target="_blank">new information he is excited about</a>, or creating beauty with his own hands. Maybe Arthur hikes or gardens, because he loves the outdoors. Perhaps he coaches a children's basketball league with a group of friends for the camaraderie, exercise, and a sense of community. None of this homework will better his life financially, nor will it make him safer or more valuable to his employer. His basic needs have been met. If we told this Arthur that he had to complete a course of really boring material that holds no interest for him and offers no benefit to his near future, he would look at his life, look at us like we were crazy, and go back to his guitar.<br />
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Now, let's say Arthur's financial situation is less than he would like. Arthur is taking online courses to get more education and a large piece of paper that states he is more valuable and should therefor be paid more for the work he accomplishes. His basic needs are not met. As he pours over screens of data and videos of slide shows with a voice reading the same words on the screen, he ignores his own social needs. As he takes online quizzes in one window while finding the answers using a google search in a accompanying tab, he blatantly disregards his higher order needs of morality for the quick pencil-whip to benefit his more basic needs. He crunches through hours of work each night in the hopes that it will better his situation financially in order to provide safety and stability for him and his family. He barely internalizes any of the information he encounters; he doesn't grow. The screens in front of him are no more than the papers he moves from one side of his desk to the other. The stress of knowing that people are depending on him causes his diet to fall apart. The acidity in his stomach leads to ulcers which he ignores due to the cost of going to a doctor. Hell, does anyone know how much these classes are costing him?<br />
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These two scenarios are incredibly close to what the reality our adolescents encounter every day, and the biggest difference is that the work they do for those seven hours at a desk doesn't pay them a dime. They also have the added stress of their own mutinous brains telling them to focus on social needs above all others. Some students, whose needs are being met, see no need in the busy work that doesn't seem to benefit them or challenge them intellectually. Sure, they complete the worksheet, but only by looking at the first example and mimicking it throughout the rest. Reading directions has been a dead art form for a couple of decades. How many of you try to<a href="http://youtu.be/JeurinbyqhQ" target="_blank"> fix your sink after watching a youtube video,</a> rather than reading a manual or calling a plumber?<br />
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A large portion of our students live in situations where their most <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_046.asp" target="_blank">basic needs</a> are not met, so their minds are not poised on the benefits of learning the differences between <a href="http://youtu.be/7znf_dC19xs" target="_blank">Italian and Elizabethan</a> sonnets or how to avoid <a href="http://youtu.be/y088_oOZwCo" target="_blank">dangling modifiers</a>. Don't get me wrong, those are great to learn, but I am not sure it is the skill we are teaching when we examine how we teach, but that will be in episode four.<br />
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This is where the nostalgic adult in all of us jumps in with a reminder that completing homework from school will earn students good grades (their pay?) and opportunities to attend <a href="http://time.com/54342/it-doesnt-matter-where-you-go-to-college/" target="_blank">better schools</a>, which will ultimately provide a stronger financial base (our pay?) so these foolish children can grow up responsibly and enjoy life when they are old, like us.<br />
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Yes, we see that timeline because we have all lived it and mucked about in it for years. We have adult brains and the experiences that help to develop those brains; kids don't. In fact, the<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_jayne_blakemore_the_mysterious_workings_of_the_adolescent_brain" target="_blank"> adolescent brain</a> would have a hard time understanding any of the sentences found above for longer than it takes for them to smile and nod their heads to get us to walk away, feeling like we made a difference. They are smart, in their own way.<br />
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Now we have to ask what we want out of our public education system. We need to ignore the smoke of the politically popular arguments and discuss what we feel is the purpose of education. Do we as a nation still believe that public education is for the public good and that we want schools to be places that challenge future citizens to become <a href="http://www.archives.upenn.edu/primdocs/1749proposals.html" target="_blank">self-actualized and intelligent participants in a democracy</a>, or do we as a nation see public education as a place for students to learn the process of pushing paper from one side of a desk to another for financial benefit?<br />
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This is the moment where I, as a teacher, have to ask myself the purpose of every assignment I demand completed and every rule for which I demand compliance. This is where I have to question if learning and education are the same. This is also the point, as a teacher, where I have to ask what my department, building, district, state, and nation want from me. The answer to that question is not very clear.<br />
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We ask more from our students now than during any time in history and we do so with the knowledge that they come to the table at different levels of met needs. As a society, do we build and value a system that meets students at their needs, or perpetuate a system that expects them to be at the same level of learning readiness based on <a href="http://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U?t=6m32s" target="_blank">date of manufacture</a>?<br />
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Tomorrow, we will explore the insane expectations we currently put on our students that we would not take on as adults and how, as parents, we reinforce the very myth we see tearing our children apart.<br />
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As always, thanks for taking the time to read and think. I think the comments are working, but if not, feel free to email comments to <a href="mailto:leejosephbutterfield@gmail.com">leejosephbutterfield@gmail.com</a> or find me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lee.butterfield" target="_blank">Facebook</a>. You can follow me on <a href="https://twitter.com/ButterfieldP1" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, and by all means, subscribe and share these posts if you like what you read. One sided discussions don't get very far.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07634416691679674657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771028762524208513.post-83419524692018237822015-03-09T13:56:00.000-08:002015-03-09T14:07:36.615-08:00Killing them Softly Part Deux: Confession of a Teaching FatherI apologize to my first-born every day.<br />
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My childhood was pockmarked with violence, swings from poverty to middle class and back, and an atmosphere of substance abuse within my family and the surrounding community. My oldest daughter, Jade, was eleven months old when I came home from Iraq and truly met her for the first time. It was my second deployment as an infantryman during my time in the Montana Army National Guard. With that type of past and the reality I learned from my latest year at war, I had made the decision that I would raise my daughter to be tough and independent so that she could survive when our world went to hell.<br />
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From the moment I met that beautiful girl, I worked to build her strength, her resilience, and her self-reliance. I made her toddlerhood about work and strength; every game we played was a lesson to be internalized and utilized as a tool for what I saw could only be a hard future. We rarely cuddled, hugged, talked nonsense, or played. During my first two years of teaching in one of the most <a href="http://www.ktuu.com/news/news/study-calls-east-bartlett-west-americas-most-diverse-high-schools/24725354" target="_blank">diverse districts</a> in the country, my wife would often comment that I pushed my four-year-old daughter harder than my eighth-grade students.<br />
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Jade had trouble in school; homework took hours and often led to tears. I would sit with her while she worked and wonder what I was doing wrong. Why was it so hard to complete a pile of worksheets? She rarely went outside to play and had few friends with whom she played outside of the school day. Her mother and I had both worked our way up from nothing and were both successful and somewhat intelligent people. What was going wrong?<br />
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I ignored that Jade was incredibly smart. She had figured out that if she made me mad enough, I would walk away to avoid reverting to the yelling and violence I had learned about parenting from my youth. When I stormed away, she would stop working and start drawing or daydreaming, something I saw no time for anymore, even though as a child I had often wandered in the plains and mountains of Montana while daydreaming.<br />
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I look at those moments now and have a profound respect for her ability to learn an intricate social pattern in my behavior and take complete advantage of it. In some ways, our children inherently know more about what they need than we do as teachers and parents.<br />
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I regret nearly every moment of that time.<br />
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It wasn't until her younger sister, Bella, was born that I realized how many mistakes I had made by trying to make her an emotional rock. I didn't know Jade as a baby, but I knew Bella. I knew the fragility, the fear, and the wonder. In Bella's first year of life, I learned more about teaching than I could have imagined. I truly understood learning for the first time as she would attempt and fail, only to get up and attempt again. Watching her taught me what scaffolding meant, and for the first time, allowed me to understand that pyramid graph that flashed across projectors and worksheets in college. Every perspective teacher, no matter what level, needs to work with very young children as a part of their own learning.<br />
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Jade is now ten. She and I have a tremendous relationship which is centered on a near-daily apology. I jokingly remind her that her younger sisters will have an easier time, because I have no parental training and she is my experiment. That sounds ludicrous from the perspective of many parents and teachers, but it has fostered the ability for us to discuss actions we both take and how they affect each other, the family, and others in our lives. She is happy, she plays, and she is a less anxious person who now loves going to school to learn, all because I came to the realization that the world wasn't going to hell, and I could chill out.<br />
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This confession serves two purposes. First, it is to highlight that we are not naturally born with all of the answers, and that our own experiences and backgrounds can confuse us on what is good for our own children and our students. It also serves as a reminder that as I pick apart a system we define as being for the public good, I am not left unstained by the mistakes we make on a daily basis.<br />
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<a href="http://teachingthemememe.blogspot.com/2015/03/killing-them-softly.html" target="_blank">Yesterday, I mentioned that we would discuss Maslow today</a>. The above was supposed to be an introduction into an examination of Maslow's hierarchy and how it is often misused in our system as both educators and parents. I think most folks are done reading by this length and I won't delete it to make room for Maslow, because it serves a purpose as I move forward on the topic of what we do to our children both within in the system and how our understanding of that system affects us as parents. We will move on to the Maslow mistake tomorrow. If you are just joining this conversation, please feel free to comment, or send a message on Google+ to Lee Butterfield.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07634416691679674657noreply@blogger.com0Anchorage, AK, USA61.2180556 -149.9002778000000360.2359631 -152.48206480000002 62.2001481 -147.31849080000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771028762524208513.post-39710270479425101862015-03-08T11:00:00.000-08:002015-03-08T12:40:01.940-08:00Killing them Softly: Expecting better-than-adult reactions from adolescents. Last night, I had a visitor. A friend and former coworker, Thomas Gardiner, brought his young daughter over to the house to play with my two youngest criminal minds, while Thomas and I talked about work, old colleagues, and our children.<br />
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At some point, we began to rant about the problems we had with our own attempts at parenthood and how we negotiate the education system from the perspective of parents. We lamented our abilities to have patience with students in the school setting and expect our own children to not have the same brain patterns as the children we show so much empathy towards on a daily basis. The very behaviors we take so much time to understand in a work setting are the behaviors we chastise and try to fix in the kids we are supposed to paternally love. It brought us to some interesting discussion which will be the focus of this blog for the near future. </div>
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Thomas has escaped and now works as the Recreation and Education Support Supervisor with <a href="http://www.akchild.org/welcome.html" target="_blank">AK Child and Family</a>. Every day, he works at bringing play and learning to emotionally troubled youth. He tirelessly coordinates active and community-based experiences that help young people develop appropriate communication and social skills. As a non-profit in Alaska, his work also leads him to work with the community to<a href="http://youtu.be/B41ebrDM6BU" target="_blank"> secure funding for the programs</a> to continue. Thomas finds a level of satisfaction in his work that many educators are missing, which is one of the catalysts for the conversation that ensued. </div>
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I say Thomas escaped, because the current state of education in our nation is a draining mental and emotional prison for people who care about kids as people. That sounds nice and cheesy, but some of us actually acknowledge that kids are self-determining, conscious beings that deserve at least some level of respect, and yet, due to pressures we have no say in, we make decisions every day that completely counter that acknowledgement. The larger system and ideas about education tend to force us to view students and teens as two dimensional icons we need to push through a machine at a steady speed which will grind them into the three dimensional, logical thinkers we so nostalgically think should come out of the system. In our nostalgic blindness, we simply continue a system based on power structure and conformity rather than learning. </div>
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This is usually the point where the blogger places blame. Some reformers blame old teachers or teacher unions. Some reactive teachers and union communications folks blame the testing culture brought on by over-zealous politicos and administrators. Some people, whose only interaction with the education system is their time as a student, make wild claims about the reality of education woes. Some on one side of the political spectrum claim that an <a href="https://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/tag/socialism/" target="_blank">atheistic, socialist plot</a> is being hatched in dark rooms where educators are planning to reprogram our public education students into an army of globalist brown shirts. To find the page above, all one has to do is search "Common Core, Socialism" and find thousands of pages decrying the death of America by setting standards. On the other side of the political spectrum, we see fear that schools will become a place where <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/07/west-virginia-climate-change-standards_n_6432050.html" target="_blank">science is ignored for political reasons</a>. Again, I only place these here to see the discussions and blame that surround the act of teaching kids how to read, write, add, subtract, and reason. It is all smoke. It keeps us all distracted from the real fire which gorges itself on our children's childhoods. </div>
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The blame game doesn't need to end, but instead must be turned into an introspective experience where we as a nation ask some simple, yet serious, questions about what we think is the point of public education and what we want from our students. </div>
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The next post will focus on the misuse and misunderstanding of <a href="http://www.altruists.org/static/files/A%20Theory%20of%20Human%20Motivation%20%28A.%20H.%20Maslow%29.pdf" target="_blank">Maslow's</a> hierarchy of needs <a href="http://youtu.be/yM8SwZkvCIY" target="_blank">(video explanation)</a> in the current system and how parents, even ones who are also educators, are caught up in perpetuating a myth of human development. What should be a useful tool to help guide discussions on learning has instead turned into a flashy graph placed on powerpoint presentations to give the <a href="http://youtu.be/0nqhopRhju4?t=5m52s" target="_blank">illusion of understanding</a> while being ignored in practice and in society. </div>
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I must acknowledge that I do believe that most of the people involved in any part of this debate actually have the best of intentions. I just don't think the parts being debated on the public scene really matter. The problems with our system can only be fixed by discussions on what education means to us as a nation and what we want our youth to experience in childhood and adolescence and what they can manage as people, real people. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/opinion/sunday/why-you-hate-work.html?WT.mc_id=2015-Q1-KWP-AUD_DEV-0101-0331&WT.mc_ev=click&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1420088400&bicmet=1451624400&ad-keywords=AUDDEVMAR&kwp_0=10653&kwp_4=78707&kwp_1=125841&_r=1" target="_blank">very problems we see with burnout in the greater American work place</a> are the realities we put adolescents into every day and expect to handle better than top executive adults getting paid for their work. </div>
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Out of respect for the digital audience's need for short blog entries, I will cut this discussion into smaller pieces. Please leave comments which will lead to a dialogue. I am not too worried. As I told Thomas, nobody will read what I have to say. I am only a teacher, which immediately disqualifies me from discussing education. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07634416691679674657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771028762524208513.post-83742075954058545902014-01-16T23:24:00.000-09:002014-01-16T23:24:37.362-09:00Using in Good Faith: Chapters 6 and 7 of 21st Century Skills<br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">The situational irony of writing about these chapters at this point in time hits like a ton of bricks. I am encouraged and required to take classes such as these to make me both a better student and a better teacher. At this very moment, the state and district I work for are slashing education funding with what seems to be an ancient stone viking axe blunted by wind, sea and bureaucracy. At this moment in time, I am planning for the rise of my student load by 20% and an end to teaming opportunities for project-based cross-curricular learning all while developing myself professionally to be better at just that. I laugh on an intake of breath to hide my frustration that the list on page 89 tells me that one of the fundamental tools needed to support 21st century learning is educational funding while ours is </span><span style="font-size: 12px;">disappearing at a ludicrous rate (they passed right by ridiculous). </span><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">That irony aside, these two chapters are both enlightening and reaffirming of the ideals I have always held dear and worked hard to live up to in my professional practice. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The idea of asking appropriate questions at the appropriate times seems like common sense to those in the business of learning. Inspired by the very question posed by Einstein and discussed in chapter six, my students and I have agreed that we will always ask childish questions and demand to not be answered in childish ways. We want to find explanation and depth, not a yes, no, or because I said so. This has led to fantastic questions posed in our energy project as starters and the work we have done with our engineer partners has pushed our students into new levels of thinking. We have over twelve separate energy-based questions moving forward at this time including some asking how we can design a cheap and portable device that can be dropped in rural third world areas with access to small amounts of running water for the purpose of creating small amounts of electricity for multiple uses. The prototype design looks great and using the skills shown in the figures from the next section have shaped and driven our process further than I had originally thought possible. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Using the concepts and information from this sections as well as the graphic tables from pages 92 and 93, my collaborating team adjusted our original parameters for the project from the student perspective. Allowing students to follow either the Science track or the Engineering track has led to multiple projects based on both areas. Groups wanting to focus on experimenting with new ideas were able to follow the Science track to create plans for experiments to test questions raised by their research. One group is currently designing a vacuum in which to test the affects of various elements on stripping pollutant molecules from coal before burning it. Following the inquiry and new questions loop, they came up with the idea of cleaning the coal first before needing to clean the results of combustion. Another group focused on utilizing flexible solar panels to power deer-repelling devices along sections of train track heavily traveled by the ungulates. This idea, following the engineering cycle, has been the topic of heavy discussion with our engineer partners and the idea has evolved several times with exciting discussion and ideas. Having these visual cues present in all of our classes has led each teacher into discussions within our own disciplines for non-related curriculum. Not only do they help shape the projects our students work on, but they coincide with the learning taking place with the instructors as well. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Chapter seven had far more benefits for me than my students. The project bicycle model helped to de-clutter my understanding of the execution of this project. At the point I began interacting with this chapter, I felt overwhelmed by the shear amount of work, communication, and planning that was demanded for successfully completing this project. Having it laid out and explained in the chapter allowed for me to take a step back and look at my planning and implementation. I will admit that my own lack of understanding the logistics of such a project had been hampering both my and my students’ experience. After reading this chapter and thinking on it for a number of days, we actually discussed it as a class and now use the bicycle model for the project and check in with our progress at the beginning and end of each project week. We also start most new units in other areas with Tom Kelley’s phrase, “How might we...?” We have even revamped how we learn complex grammar units by asking questions like, “How might we explain sentence structure in algebraic formulas?” The answer to this takes longer than I have left, but the results are amazing and the connection that both math and language are simply our brain’s recognition and use of patterns both amazes and confounds students and teachers alike. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The rest of chapter seven sings the praises of project learning and reminds us of where it working and how it is successful. The chapter ends in a way that brings me to my knees in shame over some of the experiences we have had with team disfunction throughout the project. We created groups based on personally chosen interests and availability of projects. The social ramifications of students in this age group working so closely has led to many in-group disputes and the need for mediation has arisen multiple times. While we have been successful in making the required adjustments and communicating the need for respectful collaboration, it will save a lot of time and stress to follow the guidance for team designing on future projects. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It is now time for me to walk stop reflecting and plan for another day in the job I love. While working through this allowed me the momentary consolation that comes with focus on bettering myself and my students, the creeping reality that it will be much harder, if not improbable, to plan and implement projects such as the one inspired by this book. I am told by veteran teachers that the pendulum swings and that one day we will be back to a situation in our state and nation where people who scream about the importance of education will stop trying to use politics to undermine it for their own purposes. Moments later those same teachers suck in their breath and remark how it has just never gotten this bad. </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07634416691679674657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771028762524208513.post-34252417941379153042013-08-09T08:54:00.003-08:002013-08-09T08:54:59.794-08:00Fire! Me use Fire! -or- When we convince ourselves that old is new.<div class="p1">
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<span class="s1"><i>21st Century Skills</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I must say that I sometimes get quite frustrated with my journey into the 21st century skill set as it applies to education. I read these books, participate in these conversations, and embrace the future openly, desiring to be amazed at the foresight into human potential. I have, unfortunately, often come to the conclusion that these skills are not new in a manner of speaking. They have, I will agree, been neglected for a long time in our system, but many of the attributes of a 21st century worker are simply attributes which are innately valuable in a motivated society. Chapter five catalyzed one of those moments. The career and life skills discussed in this chapter are simply traits respected in a thriving community in general and while I agree they need attention in the classroom, I worry that they have been so neglected as to need their own posters and chapters. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Professionalism, flexibility, leadership skills, and the like seem innate requirements of any successful citizenry. We could stop with the pop culture philosophies of James Tiberius Kirk who spoke often of humanity’s desire for challenge, exploration, and an ever-changing sense of reality. We can go deeper and further into the history of our species and realize that the hunter gatherer who changed their view of reality and threw flaming sticks at an oncoming predator passed their genes further along than those who continued the age-old tradition of peeing their loin cloth to season the main Man-Tartar course. I must admit, nearly a decade as a combat infantryman may influence my view of what seems important knowledge and skills for students and citizens. Much in the same way our Cro-Magnon friend beat our other humanoid species through ingenuity, teamwork, and a strong set of “21st Century” life skills, the greatest of any soldiers I had the honor of working with maintained an impressive ability to adjust to fast-changing situations without hesitation to ensure the success of any such mission. I digress...</span></div>
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<span class="s1">As I page through my notes on this chapter, I have far less to say than above. It is startling and a bit disillusioning to me that these ideas are presented as novel. I admit the authors address this situation when stating, “Though these skills have been around for a very long time, they take on new significance with the digital power tools now available for work and learning” (Fadel 86). I still feel as though this statement gives too much power to those tools over these skills and that these skill sets are socially-evolved skills that shape the way we use any tools in any era and I tend to believe the need to tell educators that we must directly infuse them says little about where the system has drifted in the past few decades. Have we so focused on what to put in the bubble that we have lost the skills to figure out what a bubble is and how to manipulate it to our advantage? </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07634416691679674657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771028762524208513.post-53176311224481918062013-07-25T12:29:00.002-08:002013-07-25T12:29:39.541-08:0021st Century Learning Chapter 4<div class="p1">
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<span class="s1"><b>Digital Literacy Skills or How to use a Hammer</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Much of chapter four plays to an understanding I have about technology growth in general. When a child grows up with technology novel to their elders, they know how to use it in the manner of basic functions. This does not change the fact that they still have the minds and impulse control of children and adolescence. Teachers and educators must stay far more tech literate if they dream of being effective as educators in the 21st century. It is far too easy for adults to fall into the trap of either novelty without purpose or fear without understanding the potential of new software and hardware. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I liken this relationship with the history of that behemoth of a technological advancement called the hammer. As far as we have evidence for, the first stones used to drive or pulverize other material date back to 2,600,00 BCE. This epic shift in reality came with either a stroke of ingenuity or a very painful bump on the head from a falling stone. Needless to say, the first folks to utilize this tool found it useful for many tasks which would have taken much longer without this technology. Then they complained that their grandchildren didn’t respect the technology and used it in ways it was not meant for. You see, their grandchildren grew up watching their parents use the hammer and easily took to it at a young age. Then at some point they threw it at a sibling or broke Grandma’s favorite bear skull. As the millennia went by, grandchildren grew up and made the technology better. They tied sticks to it and marveled at the physics they had discovered, only to be disgusted in the sad reality that their grandchildren cared not about the advancement and only about smashing items around the hut with such a simple and fun toy. At some point, a parent or grandparent realized that if they gave the child a task meant for the hammer before explaining what it was, the child became a student and the student learned. This did not make the student any less apt to break items with the hammer, but when the focused task was available, the student learned. Mind, this was not the adult stating that the hammer was the destruction of society nor the savior of humanity, but a tool that made human time more efficient and allowed for time to be spent on other tasks. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">This is technology. What we carry in our pockets is the digital age equivalent to the stone age hammer. Our grandchildren will use it faster and with more ease as well as for many of the wrong tasks. We must make the decision on wether to hand it to them without our own understandings of its potential, fear it and scare our children away from a useful tool, or know more about it than them and work to share that knowledge through meaningful activities that will also bring in community, family, and self worth. Just as this chapter encourages us to build our students’ skills in ITC, Media, and information literacy, we must build our own and have the forward thinking to see where tomorrow’s technology will take us and how we can best introduce and teach our students how they can be used to build instead of destroy. </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07634416691679674657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771028762524208513.post-69535842376377522292013-07-11T16:01:00.001-08:002013-07-11T16:01:52.564-08:00Learning to the 21st Power: Taking student learning to the level needed for success in the 21st century world market. <div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I know I promised QR Codes for Geography, but this was the purpose of the blog and you will get your free ideas next time. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>Learning to the 21st Power: Taking student learning to the level needed for success in the 21st century world market. </b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>The Players: </b>The Nebula team at Goldenview Middle School have teamed up to plan an experimental project aimed to bring students and team members into a 21st century model of thinking and learning. Other players agreed to be involved or are currently in discussion to enter include Conoco Philips Alaska, Google Plus Education division, Consumer Energy Alliance, and the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce. The first two groups have entered into the project with excitement and this summary acts as an introduction for others to join. Other individuals have tentatively agreed to work with students both in person and via Skype. This group includes App designers, physics professors, and local drill and geological teams. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>The Project: </b>At the beginning of the school year, the Nebula gifted students will be split into groups of six. Depending on the number of gifted sections, this will create five to ten groups of students. By the end of the first week students will be introduced to ten different problem statements related to energy supply and demand on both a local and global level. Each statement will have implications or challenges affecting either the mode or efficiency or production, the use and need for efficiency in the consumption of the energy, and each will also include the social implications of the challenges on the social dynamics of either developed or developing communities around the globe. The Goldenview principal has donated space for the team to create a meeting room for research, collaboration, and engagement with field professionals wether in person or via internet communications. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>The Room: </b>Teams will have scheduled access to the planning room during one forty-five minute period per week. Depending on the schedule, this will take place during either their Language Arts class or their Science class. As both teachers have designed the bulk of their curriculums to support this project, students will benefit from the collaboration time. The room will also be available for sign up before and after school as well as lunch to accommodate professionals working with groups. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>The Rough Time Line (adjustments will appear as planning continues): </b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">First Quarter: Students have the first quarter to engage with a mountain of introductory information from PBS Media, Conoco Philips, British Petroleum, as well as information from the <a href="http://www.switchenergyproject.com/"><span class="s2">Switch Energy Project</span></a>. By the end of the first quarter, groups must chose with problem statement they wish to engage. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Second Quarter: Students will use this time to conduct independent research via print, film, audio, web material, and live professionals. Students will also engage in full class discussions, presentations, and labs based on broader energy concepts. The team job is to collaborate their research and focus the full class work on the narrow problem chosen by the team. This research is based on the knowledge that they will form a hypothesis of a possible solution to the challenges presented in the problem question at the end of the quarter. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Third Quarter: Students use this quarter to develop their proposed solution to the problem. This solution can be original or build upon attempts currently taking place in the energy world with the intent of improving the outcomes. The solution can address the problem in its entirety or areas of the challenge in order to help build toward a greater solution with the sum of many working parts. Teams will not only be responsible for creating a proposal pitch for their solution, but they must create a testable model either through mathematics, digital modeling, or physical experiments to test and collect data on the effectiveness of their solution. Students must have the model complete and tested before the end of the third quarter to simulate hard deadlines in a fast-paced world market. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Fourth Quarter: Students must build and publish a website based on their project, research, and tested hypothesis for the purpose of communicating the information to a broad and diverse public. Students will need original print, video, audio, games (for exposing younger audiences to the ideas), and mobile applications related to their proposed solutions. Whether the solution proposed by the team is successful or not determines the final summary of the project. If the solution succeeds, students will use this published presentation to explain why and formally request participation in moving the project to a larger scale. If the solution fails to meet the requirements set by the team, they will explain what steps would push the project in the proper direction and formally request participation in moving forward with new ideas. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>What we Need from You (Not Money): </b>We need time. I started this project based on my vision that education needs to be more than students learning facts and skills for the sake of learning facts and skills. This no longer applies to the motivators our students respond to. They crave purpose and have no qualms asking what that purpose is. Throughout my career, I have always used large ideas and projects as vehicles for teaching the standards rather than the standards themselves as the vehicles. Lately I have heard the private sector state loudly that they want to be involved in education and I have seen many great business partnerships fall into ruts of schools asking for money and service for hanging up company logos. My fellow media teacher and I already have media and local businesses work directly with our media classes to create advertising and creative film work. Please see samples of our student work <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/goldenviewmedia"><span class="s2">here</span></a>. We also work together on what has been known as the Passion Project and over the last two years, we have developed it from an amazing project on paper to an even more eventful project through 21st century tools and ideas. For examples of student work, please follow the links on t<a href="https://docs.google.com/a/asdk12.net/document/d/1YtPGOTcmO5GwueTNduUr5egjti7Kdw3LSJpgb5H7ELg/edit"><span class="s2">his page</span></a>. This project seemed like the next logical step in integrating real world problem solving, innovation, collaboration, and creation into our forward thinking team. If you or someone you know would be interested in participating, please email your contact information to <a href="mailto:butterfield_lee@asdk12.org"><span class="s2">butterfield_lee@asdk12.org</span></a> or comment on this post. </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07634416691679674657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771028762524208513.post-43931220694353333382013-07-01T20:52:00.000-08:002013-07-01T20:52:03.902-08:00Who the hell is Edmund Wilson? QR Codes in the Library<div class="p1">
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<span class="s1">The above is the reaction I would expect from a student reading Wilson’s jacket review of William Faulkner’s life-altering novel, <i>Absalom, Absalom</i>. Wilson says of Faulkner, “Faulkner...belongs to the full-dressed post-Flaubert group of Conrad, Joyce, and Proust”. I was first handed this book by a great friend and mentor by the name of Brady Harrison whose book, <a href="http://livepage.apple.com/"><span class="s2">Agent of Empire</span></a>, is available now. (If each of you order a copy, he will notice and wonder what shift has taken place in the universe. I have one, and he hasn’t signed it yet.) Even as a young literature student wandering the stacks, if Brady had not suggested the title to me as a friend, Wilson’s words on the back of the book wouldn’t have swayed me into reading what is now and will forever be one of my favorite insights into the human condition. How then, could I possibly expect it to catch the attention of a teenager who doesn’t know the name of their school principal let alone Edmund Wilson? I was lucky enough to know one of the two best librarians in the state of Alaska who helped develop this next project and it has worked best for us as another great link between LA and the library, but I sense would be a great bridge with other core subjects as well.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">-Students in my Language Arts classes are required to read a book of choice on their own time every three weeks. The only restriction on the books is that they must be at the student’s reading level or above. Each book requires a short written review which assesses both a specific reading standard and writing standard. Each teacher has a collection of these prompts already or has some available, so I will not go into detail on each of them. One of my favorites is an exercise in conflict identification and discussion as well as word economics through focused word choice. I was introduced to this prompt by a colleague and I love it. After reading their choice book, students write a review identifying the main conflict, identify the conflict type, and analyzing its importance in shaping the rest of the plot line while judging if it was entertaining and effective. The catch is that the review must be exactly twenty-five words and grammatically correct. Needless to say, revision and editing also play a major role in this review. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">-Once the written review is in final form, students use either a camera, a phone camera, or a computer with camera capabilities to record themselves speaking the review to the camera. Most reviews last less than thirty seconds. We have done this for a couple of years and learned some tricks to make them better. We have a green screen set up for this year’s reviews with the added challenge of students identifying a picture or scene to lay in behind themselves on their review. This will add the experience of higher technical skills with video editing in a relatively small dose as well as linking the book with a representative image. Once the videos are made, the instructor will need to make a vital decision in which they will choose to trust students or use a massive amount of personal time. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">-I run a school youtube page which works great for communicating what our students can accomplish to the outside world. Each student signs a media waiver at our school for these purposes which is extremely important if you get into the media and digital world. The problem for us was that youtube is blocked by our district’s firewall and switching to youtube for education is a challenge to argue technically with our top education technology administrators. We had to find a system which, like youtube, sent a temporary clip player to the device opening movie URLs through QR Codes. If that didn’t make sense, feel free to ask what I meant by the previous sentence. We tried <a href="http://www.teachertube.com/"><span class="s2">TeacherTube</span></a>, but found it clunky at best. It took long amounts of time to upload films and then there was a longer-than-projected wait time for clips to be available for viewing. While scouring the online possibilities, we also toyed with the idea of creating our own in-house server with the needed capabilities. I then stumbled upon <a href="http://www.schooltube.com/"><span class="s2">SchoolTube</span></a>. It does what youtube does for our needs and is not blocked by our firewall. No matter which video site you use, make sure to designate the security setting as “unlisted”. This will limit access to the video to those people opening the link and will not allow the film to be accessed through a search. The QR Code, of course, is just a vehicle for the link. As the instructor, I choose to load each of the videos from the students. I could open a station for students to load the videos, but for short videos, it takes less time for me to load them as I receive them. I keep a running link/code spreadsheet on googledocs which is an alpha list with columns for assignment links and QR Codes. I put the link to the loaded videos into the appropriate column from my station once the film is uploaded and students can make their codes for the links at their leisure before the due date and place them in the appropriate column for that assignment code. The system runs quite smoothly and makes it easy for quick checks to see who is behind on turn-in. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">-Once the codes are all turned in, we print off the name and code columns, turn it in to our librarian, and she attaches them to the backs of each copy of those titles. Now, when a student walks into her library, they can scan the codes on the backs of books for a friend or acquaintance of the same age and interests for their take on books. These reviews are far more powerful on getting students to read than obscure names of what they view as old people from far away.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>Next Post: In the Geography Class or Beam us Down Scotty</b></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07634416691679674657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771028762524208513.post-27833466739199458972013-06-30T22:55:00.000-08:002013-06-30T23:11:06.426-08:00QR Codes: Usable Information Instead of Pedagogical Blather (Lesson One)I must first thank the greatest librarian in the state of New York, Nicole Chase-Iverson, for inspiring me to use this format for more than self-aggrandizing, pedagogical numbskullery. <br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VsZDIoCfsc" target="_blank">QR, or quick response codes</a> are everywhere and have been for a number of years now. One of the two best librarians in Alaska, <a href="http://www.asdk12.org/schools/goldenview/pages/Goldenviewmiddle/Library.html" target="_blank">Nicole Roohi</a>, got me interested in QR codes two years ago and we pondered how we could take these to a level that would benefit students both for access to information and preparing them for an innovative work force. <br />
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We started with examining how they were being used in industry and commercial products. At first, what we found was staggeringly unimaginative. The purpose of a code on a Pepsi cup at a theatre taking the patron to a Pepsi home page destroyed much hope for this new communication device. I still look forward to the theatre industry placing codes on the popcorn and soda packages designed for specific films that take patrons to the trailer of the film they came to see as an appetizer to the main course of the film. An even more exciting concept for nerds such as myself would be the first release of a trailer to the film's sequel. That would make me, the patron, feel special in a very marketable way. I would buy every popcorn with a movie poster on it to be a part of the elite first audience of upcoming films. But alas, poor trailers, I know you not. <br />
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As one can see from the above video, good ideas were forming, but the medium had other challenges besides an incredible lack of marketing creativity in large firms. QR readers were sketchy at best in the beginning. One would need an incredibly steady hand and smartphone cameras were still dodgy in megapixel abilities. Codes needed a large amount of space and one would need close proximity. These challenges have since fallen to the wayside as <a href="http://www.mooreslaw.org/" target="_blank">Moore's Law</a> has not let me down yet.<br />
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It was not until a year and a half ago when <a href="http://www.seattledrumschool.com/JeremySchulz.htm" target="_blank">Jeremy Shulz</a>, an acquaintance of mine and a friend of my brother, really inspired me to think heavily on the education opportunities presented by QR codes. Jeremy started <a href="http://www.r-evolutiontees.com/" target="_blank">R Evolution</a> which places QR Codes onto band shirts which link the customer to a one-time download of the band's album. This forward thinking and radical shift in product movement forces us to rethink the possibilites of this funny looking square in student communication and interaction.<br />
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The following posts are a collection of ideas and tried lessons using QR Codes in a variety of classrooms and other learning environments. I will also post some that we have brainstormed for future trials, so if anyone has the ability and love of risk to try them out, please leave your experience, tips, and criticisms in the comments. After writing out the first two, I think I will post one every other day as to not inundate those actually interested. The planning on some can seem daunting, but the payoff is worth every minute.<br />
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<b>In The Writing Classroom: (Why teach everything to everyone?)</b><br />
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As an English teacher, grammar is my double-edged sword. While I understand the beauty and purpose of students knowing language structure and gaining the ability to discuss language with the words relating to it, I also know they are bombarded with grammar every year in often boring and unimaginative direct instruction. Do not think I am one of the folks denigrating the teaching of grammar, because that is the last message I want to send. With the hot word "purpose" floating around the heads of wide-eyed administrators everywhere, it seems appropriate to put it to actual use. This is how it works for me.<br />
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- I have a recipe box that sits on my desk. It is organized in alphabetical order and each card has the name of an English concept written across the top from grammar rules all the way to essay structural concepts. At the beginning of each year, I scour <a href="http://www.youtube.com/?feature=ytca" target="_blank">YouTube</a> and its educational equivalents looking for videos related to common mistakes I see in my students' initial writing. I then make a QR Code linking to each video, print it off, and glue it to its perspective recipe card. One of my favorites over the last three years is a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIW4N35Y79s" target="_blank">semicolon explanation from "How to Write More Better-er"</a>. I could take the time to make these videos myself, but there is no need as the internet is brimming with great clips that can help with education, even though most of our students would rather watch <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfpL6_0OBuA" target="_blank">screaming goats</a> or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXkGtJUP0WE" target="_blank">people eating cinnamon</a>.<br />
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--Now all I have to do is read their writing. When working in class and reading off paper copies or on the white boards and we spot one of many writing issues present itself, I can simply ask the writer to grab the needed recipe card, plug their headphones in, scan the code and get a personal lesson in a writing weakness specifically to them. As most students cannot function without their smartphone for longer that twelve minutes anyway, I rarely need to bring out one of my own.<br />
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--This raises the question on whether this cheats other students from learning this valuable information. What if they already know it? My students also take assessments on the basics of language through google forms. Our district has a package with access to many of the products through a district .net account. I prefer the forms as I can require students sign in to take the assessment giving me a time stamp and name attached to the data. <b> (Note: If your district does not offer such a package, you can still make google forms through a gmail or google docs account. I would make one separate for educational purposes and make sure your supervisor supports the idea. You will not have the auto name functions offered in a package, but you could make the first question of every test asking students to type in their first and last names. Teachers are smart; you will figure it out. If you don't, ask me and I will help you and gladly talk to your supervisor about the benefits of such packages.)</b> If you want a fabulous data collection tool on basic skills, forms works great. If you do not have the excel skills to manipulate the data, you can find tips online or find an accountant. They can manipulate data in excel in ways that make nerds a bit too giddy. Ask one to teach you how and they will jump at the opportunity to share the hip secrets they have carried in the darkness of cubicle life for so long. Once you have the data organized into a useful manner, it becomes easy to target the needs of individual students. I then make myself a note to have those students see multiple clips explaining the concepts in a variety of delivery methods and check in on progress. This frees up so much time in the classroom to move on with projects, discussions, and exciting and mind-blowing experiences. <br />
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--I also keep a table in my google docs with the same QR Codes from my desk lined up with the same title from the cards, as well as a third column with the URL addresses to the videos. When writing in google docs, my students share me with edit and commenting privileges. When I notice an issue I have a video for, I can highlight the section of text and link a comment on the side with both my notes and the direction to click on the link for further explanation. <b>(Ask me how and I will show you.) </b>When a student fixes the problem with a comment, they mark resolved and I get a handy link in my inbox taking me directly to the problem area to check on revision and edit work. <br />
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--This seems like a lot of work, but if I work my basic skills lessons into actual writing that has meaning for the students and is an added piece to my curriculum, my time doubles in value and final drafts take less than a quarter of the time to read.<br />
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<b>Next Post: QR Codes in the Library or </b><b>Who the hell is Edmund Wilson?</b><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07634416691679674657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771028762524208513.post-62321701339388368492013-06-28T15:29:00.000-08:002013-06-28T15:29:11.973-08:0021st Century Skills Chapter 2<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Trilling and Fadel begin this chapter with a hint at what Michio Kaku (<a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/11/29/142717081/physics-of-the-future-how-well-live-in-2100"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #191aa3; text-decoration: underline;">Physics of the Future</span></a>) refers to as the time of abundance. The team’s three generation analogy alludes to the journey towards this abundance as each generation builds upon the last generation’s accomplishments to further progress the system in which they belong. One can take that generation a step further and mention that Lee’s young daughter is currently learning the programming skills necessary to utilize GPS systems and smart cars (for which prototypes already exist) to develop self driving systems which will eliminate accidents and lack of efficiency in daily driving. Many of Kaku’s ideas speak to this chapter and I shall apply this lens to my project throughout this paper. Speaking to this noted time of abundance, as we develop technologies that make the daily necessities of life easier to obtain, the ideas and thinking move into the realm of creation and solving more complicated problems which often result from the very fixes from the past. It becomes a requirement at this point to shift our thinking to the building of ideas upon that base level rather than relearning the base level alone. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Knowledge Work: (applied to energy project)</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b>The start of our energy project next year lies in utilizing <a href="http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #191aa3; text-decoration: underline;">PBS Learning Media</span></a> as an introduction to energy issues and technology. The class as a whole will view and discuss several energy-based videos and each group will have other videos assigned to their groups for viewing, analysis, and utilization within their projected model. This utilizes not only the ability to gather information from digital sources, but also incorporates the collaborative nature of group discussion and work on a shared topic or goal. When we say 21st century student, many of us automatically think about the technology aspect and not the human interaction it has enabled and that we must recreate in person as well. The school has offered our class a collaboration room where we will include space for groups to work as well as access internet-based learning spaces and Skype interviews with other students and professionals from their project area. Fadell mentions multinational corporations investing in development of teachers, and I wonder where they are as we hope to involve them in the class directly as well. For this project, we have set up a meeting with the engineering department at Conoco Philips (meeting happened today; look for entry on it soon) to create a relationship based on this energy project linking students to engineers and technicians around the world with expertise in energy production and consumption. We have also coordinated a meeting with a group of department leaders at Google via online meetings (also happened; update soon) to discuss the creation of digital workspaces custom built to the project’s needs including the groups themselves in the design process. We are working on meetings with other energy and engineering companies to broaden the scope and create possible collaboration situations for these student groups. Fadel and Trilling seem to support the idea of encouraging students not only to go through the motions of completing work, but also be involved in the planning and understanding of the infrastructure which supports learning in order to practice the innovation necessary to create those environments and settings in their own future endeavors. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Thinking Tools: (applied to energy project)</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b>One argument I have entered into over the last six years of my teaching is the argument over the use of mobile devices in the classroom. I completely agree that the misuse of these devices wastes time and causes distraction within the class setting. Then the person making this point checks their facebook page on their desktop, laptop, or iphone. I find it ironic when this happens and when I point it out I am usually handed the age-old “I am an adult and a professional which earns me certain privileges” argument. I disagree and feel that instead of battling an addiction to mobile media which adults also succumb to (<a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/reports/2009/How-Teens-Use-Media.html"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #191aa3; text-decoration: underline;">one study indicates my age group utilizes them for viewing far more often than the teens we teach</span></a>), we should instead simply show the amazing capabilities these devices have and how we can harness them to produce and not just consume. With the addition of Google Glass over the next few years and the even more unobtrusive contact lens which Michio Kaku speaks of often, education and educators will be forced to not only rethink how we educate, but the very nature of assessment in general. Standardized, single-answer tests will no long suffice on the measurement of abilities as, with a mere blink of an eye, students will access unlimited information in the very pupil of their eye. We must instead change our focus to how to find information, judge its validity, and utilize it and other learned skills to solve complex problems with a variety of options for solving. The project hopes to mirror this concept as it asks students to collaborate, research, validate, propose solutions, test solutions, and present findings on a problem rather that simply reading a concept and answering questions based on whether or not the material was read. The research component will reside in books, magazines, websites, and interviews and meetings with field professionals via Skype, Google+ For Education, and Facetime. Students conducting this research and creating these learning environments helps them prepare for the innovation and adaptability the future job markets demand. On a side note, I love that the authors mention Moore’s law without mentioning the law itself. I do wonder why they don’t delve into this topic a bit as, just like students, the more teachers know about the concepts we are learning about, the better we can apply them to our own thinking. <b> </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Digital Lifestyles:</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b>This piece of the chapter really highlights the idea that the answer to teaching this generation is not based on having the newest gear and the knowhow to use it, but having the adaptability to understand that these students have a whole different sense of reality and understanding information than do their predecessors. It reminds me of when my household bought our first family computer and hooked it to the internet. Both my parents and my computer teachers at school fell to the same naive notion of technology and learning. They put us in front of machines they did not understand themselves and expected us to teach ourselves and become intelligent in the ways they were. We learned how to use computers and the internet, but to them we seemed slow in the areas they were expecting us to flourish in. I find this similar with many teachers I work with even today. They feel that finding the next program or the faster machine will directly impact how well their students learn their material, but this is a false notion often fed by a deeper need to feel supported through new media. Both students and teachers need to be taught that the technology itself is only a tool to help with the gaining of knowledge and skills and that a new management of learning must take place for those tools to become effective in education goals. Many or most teachers truly realize this concept but are not often shown the extent of what the new technology can accomplish and do not have the proper support which leads them to want to take the risk needed to use it. When we look at the bullet list on page 29, we can deconstruct the way to connect students to the skills we want them to have rather than relying on the machine as the fix to any situation. These highlight not the technology itself, but how it has shifted the needs of the students in learning situations. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">-<b>Freedom:</b> Students can navigate wherever they please on their own time. Bringing them into a situation telling them they must learn one concept in only one way with the same singular outcome will accordingly bore them to affectless numbness at school. The answer is not to cut them loose with no guidance as they will inevitably accomplish little to no work towards the standards or goals of the assignment. The answer is for instructors to put in the planning to give students a choice of real problems to solve with not already planned answers and guide them through their efforts with the skills needed and standard skills teachable in the given set of choices. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">-<b>Customization:</b> As students customize their own web-based portfolios through facebook, twitter, and instagram, they develop the habit of selling themselves and their talents in the forms they choose. As we continue to move toward a more producer-based web, this will only grow within our students. Again, the planning of the teacher comes into play when designing assignments (projects) and assessments. Up front planning creates an environment where students can show what they know through the mediums they work best in. This also demands malleability of the instructor in the skills of developing choices which work for both the student and the teacher for the evidence of learned skills and information. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">-<b>Scrutiny: </b>This comes to questioning. The “me-me-me generation” has no subculture as they do not recognize a general culture surrounding them. This is an obvious step from the social revolution grandparents fighting the culture of the time followed by the self-pitying-do-not-help-me generation X. This new generation is accepting of people in general, but not of authoritative demands without evidence or reason. In short, they question. This questioning is a demand we should have and encourage in our students, but the teacher must be willing to be questioned as well. These students have very few secrets and therefor are more willing to pry into the reasons and details of many levels before the current system squashes the tendency instead of feeding it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">-<b>Integrity and Openness: </b>Through videos, pictures, tweets, and status updates, students live their lives in the open. Many of their current pop-culture heroes came to fame simply through the ability to openly share their faults and accomplishments on line for the world to see. They expect the same from the adults in their lives. Creating an environment where students feel that they can be open as well as expect the others in the room to do likewise, including the instructor. Too many times, the separation of the teacher from the students as one sitting higher on a social ladder creates a sense of separation and distrust in the learning environment. While we as an older generation may have more respect for privacy and “keeping up appearances”, our students wear their lives on their sleeves. We must create a space where that is welcome and not judged too harshly when we deem information unsatisfactory. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Entertainment: </b>This is a no-brainer and older than this generation for sure. We like to play. We like to laugh. We like to be intrigued, excited, and entertained. The world of sit down, shut up, and learn from the boring guy in the tie can no longer exist with our students. Just what stops us as instructors from putting in the planning time to make our lessons more entertaining and engaging for our students? We must also take feedback from our students on the effectiveness of that planning by paying attention to them as the lesson unfolds. Are they sleeping or are their eyes wide with anticipation of the next step? Living by that idea creates a class all students are excited to attend. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">-<b>Collaboration:</b> Students’ lives are lived and determined by the opinions and affections of those around them. Why not take advantage of that fact by creating an environment which mutual respect and friendship as they would want to work together simply to be around each other? This is easy to achieve again by taking time to design positive situations where students and instructors interact towards similar goals and the event is a team event rather than individual battles. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">-<b>Speed: </b>Teachers must connect with students outside of the forty-five minutes a day they see them. The class should maintain a twitter account for the purposes of class. Sending out a cool fact at random times shows students that the information is not just what they are mandated to learn, but helpful, fun and useful in all aspects of life. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">-<b>Innovation:</b> One could never overstate the importance of innovation in the future work place. Every major corporation and learning genius understands and professes the need for students to be innovative and imaginative. Why then do we inhibit it through the worksheet culture of fact pushing within concrete prisons seated at standardized work-spaces? This will not be addressed by so-called education reformers and the only answer is for teachers to scoff at the data-driven reformation and instead reform from within and let the data do the talking later. By planning and taking the steps necessary to contain the above principles and apply the skills needed to them, we can simply pass by any standardized test with ease as a moment of annoyance in our otherwise exhilarating class experience. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Learning Research:</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b>This section is clear and needs little discussion. I wonder though why it needs discussion at all in the profession as the issues within the section seem common sense. They speak to all previous discussion and only add to say that time should be taken to discuss what we are doing and why in the sense of how we learn. I shall now move directly to the Top Challenge as the rest speaks to the previous statements. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Top 21st Century Challenge:</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The authors again note that problem solving and the abilities to do so are where our education system should focus while building solid foundations in core subjects. The question for us as educators is how to accomplish this monumental task. I argue through this project is to introduce them to the task of solving these problems now. Have them enter the discussion and take on the tasks while they are safe to fail and rebuild ideas. The test of the 21st century teacher will be to plan and integrate the skills and information required by standardization into the process of teaching 21st century skills. It is on the shoulders of the instructor. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07634416691679674657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771028762524208513.post-35855969433533684282013-06-25T08:09:00.000-08:002013-06-25T23:30:00.234-08:00<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Solving Tomorrow’s Problems: A year-long project learning proposal with goals of building innovation, teamwork, and global community interaction. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This proposal stems from two definitive moments in the last year of my life. One is the the winning of third place in the PBS Innovation Awards and my driving goal to win first place next year to gain the opportunity to meet the top innovators of our nation at the Henry Ford Innovation conference of 2014. I cannot sit back and pretend it is not part of the driving force behind this project as my goals are not only for my students but for the opportunity to share my vision of education with larger communities and bring the factory system to its knees. The second moment is the opening of the text, <a href="http://21stcenturyskillsbook.com/"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #191aa3; text-decoration: underline;"><i>21st Century Skills</i></span></a><i>, </i>which tends to not only support many of the ideas I use to design my own classroom, but also introduces much more for me to build upon as I move forward. Many other texts will make themselves known through this process and will not be limited to print media by any means. I look forward to comments and offers of expertise along the way. I am but one man. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I propose to create a year-long assignment opportunity for students to identify, analyze, collaborate on, and propose an evidence-based innovative solution to a current or foreseeable energy problem facing the global community. Not only must they propose a solution, but they must have created a model (experiment) testing their proposal on a scaled setting. This project yearns to connect with not only the core subject areas of the students involved by incorporating the experimental design through the scientific method, the computation of data through mathematics, the social ramifications of energy production and consumption throughout history and what those lessons mean to the planning of proposals now, the dissemination of all data, analysis, and conclusions through digital means of publication in clear and concise language which both captivates and informs the target audience as well as the general public; but it also desires to include as many of our students’ elective classes as possible through hands on manipulation of materials, media presentation, and the use of arts as media tools and vehicles for mass communication of proposed ideas. In short, this project will be run as a serious attempt to propose a solution to a problem on a mass level. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After reading the prologue, the introduction, and chapter one of Tilling and Fadel’s book, I feel there are a number of areas that help drive the idea of this project forward as well as some moments that speak to the reason more teachers do not take innovative risks in their classrooms. On page xvi of the forward to the paperback edition, the authorial team treats us to the known and understandable statement that, “transforming education systems is very hard work, demanding consistent, long-term commitments to changing learning approaches-a consistency that must survive shifts in politics and administrations” (Fadel xvi). This rings true in theory, but what if those political shifts focus much of their attention on where they think education should be? We have witnessed in the last two decades, movement in a completely opposite direction in education from where Trilling and Fadel, as well as other brilliant minds in education and the future economy such as Sir Ken Robinson in his speeches and writings on education in its current form, not limited to the following: <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #191aa3; text-decoration: underline;">http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html</span></a> as well as: <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #191aa3; text-decoration: underline;">http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html</span></a>. Both of these moments highlight the text’s point of leaving the industrial age and moving into the age of creativity and trade in knowledge, yet the political machine fueled by global competition for data regurgitation and the lobby of testing companies continues to act as the driving force behind education policy. Just as the idea of a factory-based economy in the United States is no longer conceivable or effective, training our students in mundane, repetitive tasks at specific ages seems not only ridiculous, but borderline insane. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So we now boldly enter a new era as instructors with the knowledge that our students will not only need to understand basic concepts such as mathematics and communication, but that they will also need to understand how to solve new problems whether species survival related or how to market products in an ever-changing media market. This concept is nothing new, although each generations feels they are encountering history’s greatest hurdles during their own time. Problem solving has always been the root of learning. How do we make our lives easier so that we can accomplish more in our short time on the planet? From the moment flint struck the first man-made flame to the now developing medical equipment based on the TriCorder of <i>Star Trek</i>, a force stronger than mere collecting of data allows humanity to constantly strive and build upon already attained knowledge. Our students will not need to figure out or even consciously understand the coded workings of cloud computing when they enter the job market, they will simply need to know how to use it rather than how it works. This opens the discussion that we must shift our teaching focus onto the ability to solve future problems using the knowledge we have and in that create new levels of knowing and understanding. This inevitably leads us into motivators. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our world faces dilemmas, if not major obstacles, when it comes to our energy future. While some nations revel in their access to inexpensive energy, some are just now realizing the power of cheap and available energy, and others are still stagnant in both economic and world political arenas. As students enter my pod next year, they will be randomly placed into groups of six. Each group will have one week to choose from a list of energy challenges either currently faced by a society on Earth or a problem easily seen in the near future. Research and meetings have begun in order to generate the list and provide the support that groups will need on the project. As these assignments come in, the development will reveal itself. The purpose of handing students real-world problems with no concrete solutions at this time works in relation to Daniel Pink’s statements on human motivation. Pink States, “Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money. [Or maybe grades Ed.] That’s a mistake. . . The secret to performance and satisfaction — at work, at school, and at home — is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world” (<i>Drive</i>). Problems of this magnitude will allow students to attack real and substantial material and whether they figure out a fix to a problem or not, they will get the satisfaction of working on a level most have not given them a chance to work on before.</span></div>
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