Think Like a Teacher

As teachers, we all work to balance high expectations while differentiating for various abilities and needs. When we set “requirements” in a digital, social learning community, it is indeed a delicate dance.

Example: You set a high bar for all students in your science class for written expression students in a shared learning community with other schools like MySciLife. Posts must use complete sentences and correct conventions of written English.  The powerful tools of authentic, social learning today: online learning communities, blogs, wikis, and collaborative projects, all motivate kids to show their best writing. Alas, one student’s “best” may invite embarrassment, comparison,  or — and this is the worst — digital muting by his peers. Kids simply ignore posts they cannot understand or that they deem “dumb.”  They even exclaim,” Hey! This kid didn’t use complete sentences, and you said we had to!” Either way, the struggling poster’s voice goes unheard.

Students who struggle with writing — for whatever reason — need more scaffolding and support outside the social stream. Few content area teachers are familiar with strategies for writing help, and many do not realize how much they may hurt. Dealing with a student’s writing is like doing surgery on his larynx. You are dealing with a voice here!

Struggling students want to be heard and to join in the  online conversations — and they should, but they need time to build to a level of competence that does not invite criticism or giggles.  As teachers, we dance delicately. We can suggest offline drafts (think Google docs or even — gasp– paper?) so the struggling student  can improve his/her writing before he posts. We can encourage him to have a peer read it back to him aloud to be sure it “sounds right.” Offer some sentence starters in a Word doc,  diminishing this support over time. Even use his own sentence starters derived from his previous posts. We can focus on major conventions, but we also need to focus on the science content. Offer some words he can drag and drop to form sentences, including required science terms.

Remember that larynx! We do not want to mute his voice by over moderating, rewriting, or constantly disapproving his posts. He needs the posting and social learning experience even more than others. So we eventually allow him to post in the stream and hope that others will be kind. Our delicate teaching dance includes promoting digital citizenship so other students do not demean or digitally “mute” those who struggle. Encourage kids to reply to posts who have received no comments. Reply to a post with a thoughtful question that will help you learn more from that person. Give bonus points for interactions that go above and beyond by asking questions that help another student explain more clearly.

Writing is tough. Writing is personal. Remember the larynx and tread carefully as you tiptoe the delicate dance!

Our classrooms face the same engagement challenges that the Wall Street Journal describes at historic sites across the U.S. More and more, consumers enter school doors with digital devices glued in their hands or tethered to their brains. BYOD/BYOT (Bring your own device/technology) is here. Even if the devices are NOT officially allowed, they are here, hidden under desks or behind books.

Historic sites have responded more quickly than most schools. You can play a texting game in Williamsburg, scan QR codes to learn more at almost every museum these days, or load an app to let you interact while physically standing at historic sites. Curators and education staff worry about the invasive juxtaposition of technology in a Shaker barn and the constant need to update their apps to avoid appearing “outdated.” Teachers face the same concerns managing new technologies. If they believe they must “stay ahead.” they are doomed to fail. We will never “stay ahead” of  what enters the school in students’ pockets.

Historic sites must woo consumers to perpetuate their income stream. They face a digital challenge: “How do we continue to appeal to consumers armed with — and distracted by– devices? What activities and apps can we make that will engage them via those devices?” But schools are more or less guaranteed  our “consumers” for longer periods of time. We therefore have a chance to flip the digital challenge around, asking ourselves, “How can we make students active participants in making the ‘school’ experience one where we not only participate, but create,  leaving a legacy for future learners?” Historic sites have little chance for participant legacy beyond good reviews on TripAdvisor. The difference between a historic site “visitor” and our “learners” is the legacy our learners can leave for those to come.

As I read about the digital experiences at Williamsburg, I wonder if we could gradually make school a digital immersion. Imagine a classroom filled with QR codes — that the teacher does not have to make. The learners make them. Imagine texting games or QR treasure hunts that kids embed in the physical space of a classroom.  Image simple apps, games,  and interactive maps created by kids. As current technologies age, they could be replaced by later student projects. Instead of “turning in” student projects for a grade, we could “turn on” student projects for future audiences of learners. In many classrooms, teachers already have students creating digital projects. The missing step is making them part of a perpetual learning place called school.  Imagine how much harder kids would work for such a vast audience. It would be interesting to find out whether a seventh grader would continue to monitor responses that come in to his fifth grade game about Explorers or would monitor the number of times her QR Treasure hunt was accessed. I am not sure, but I’d sure love to find out. If I were in charge of a physical learning space today, I’d be one of the learners alongside my students, plastering it with digital experiences for any learning consumer who walks in.

I had a conversation this week with a sixth grade teacher/university teacher-educator about the concept of “seatwork.” Many years ago, after teaching in middle school for nine years, I moved to an elementary gifted teacher position and was stunned to hear this term. “Seatwork” simply was not part of my teaching vocabulary or repertoire.  Frankly, I choke on the term and the idea of keeping kids busy during transitional times using pieces of paper whose primary value was to fill time.  I do not mean to offend or condemn teachers’ need to preserve their sanity during bus arrivals and instructional times while they pay attention to a small group and others are working on something “in their seats.”  We all plan lesson times where students work independently — from kindergarten to high school seniors. But let’s get rid of “seatwork” for the sake of soaking up time. Let’s gamify ” seatwork into Gameworks! (A tribute to #iste13)

Kids love games and invent their own all the time. (Watch a playground!) Even teens invent challenges for each other (not necessarily safe or positive ones). Instead of handing out “worksheets”  and filling time with “seatwork,” have kids create games and challenge their peers with their creations. Yes, you will may have to show the littlest ones how to make a game, but having an audience and purpose for their efforts will generate more meaningful practice with the spelling words or colors or numbers. The game creator and the subsequent players all benefit as you create a community of game-players (and even build some sportsmanship). Arrange the “seats” into  game circles or pairs. Bingo! (oops, pun),  you have gamified “seatwork” into Gameworks. In single computer elementary classrooms, use student computer center time for students to create games, then share them during Gameworks time.

Here are some simple tools to get you started  gamifying seatwork into Gameworks in a non-tech classroom. The TeachersFirst reviews give more details and the links.

Puzzle maker (TeachersFirst review) Use this oldie but goodie to make traditional paper puzzles or get a little tricky and use them electroncially on an interactive whiteboard “gamespace” for student gamers.

Bingo Baker (TeachersFirst review) Create Bingo games. Yes, Gameworks bingo will make some noise, but it will be on-task, productive noise.

Word Search Builder  (TeachersFirst review) Another word search maker. This one makes both printable and online versions you solve by clicking the letters to highlight them in yellow. There is no way to SAVE the online version, though. This is great for game-making on the fly. Try it on tablets for student gamemakers to pass to a neighbor to solve (does not use Flash).

How do You Play (TeachersFirst review) Find rules and ideas for nearly every game you ever knew and some you never did! Gameworks creators can invent their own games on ANY topic using these ideas. There are even simple games for little ones.

Tools for Educators (TeachersFirst review)  Among the many useful items on this site are game board makers and more. Kids will LOVE being the new Parker Brothers!

Online Egg Timer  (TeachersFirst review)  Handy for game players or to declare the end of Gameworks time.

Timer-Tab  (TeachersFirst review) Online alarm clock/timer for your Gameworks that displays the countdown in the actual browser TAB

Countdown Timer (TeachersFirst review) An online timer that looks like the kitchen classic. (Don’t forget to turn up your speakers.)

Next week I will share some “tech” tools for classrooms where students have access to laptops or other devices to play the games.

Today’s rapid-fire, tweeting world loves lists. We see numbered lists on Twitter, in headlines, on magazine covers, among the “popular” stories on our Google News sidebar, among our Facebook friends’ links, on blogs or sites we follow, and even on television. The lists often outnumber any significant substance. The headlines read “Ten best ways to do this,” “Top seven blunders of that,” “50 Best blah-blah,” “100 top whatever.” I admit that I have fallen into the numbered list trap when in a hurry. It’s simply easier and quicker to list a bunch of stuff than it is to finely craft a single idea.

I am tired of lists. Give me one solid, deep article or critique any time over a long list that allows the author to avoid a firm decision or  investigation of  one option in full detail. I would like a supported opinion on one book, a recommended investment, a classroom management strategy, or tip to deal with an ornery two year old, not a long list of possibilities that I must sort, probe, or filter. Yes, I like choices, but I also like to hear an opinion supported by evidence and flavored by nuance. Numbered lists are quick, but they share as much subtlety as an all you can eat buffet. They scream,” My smorgasbord is impressive because it has so many serving dishes, not because any dish can actually stand  on its own culinary merit.”

As teachers, we expect our students to provide visible steps for their solutions to equations, solid evidence for the thesis of their essays, and connections between data and conclusion in their lab reports. Would we allow a “Top ten options in solving for X”? or “Seven possible reasons for the Civil War”? I hope not. Numbered lists have value as brainstorms and for idea gathering — as preliminary investigations, not as ends in themselves.

We should model what we expect. If we write lists for our students (or parents), we should prioritize the items and explain why. If we allow Top Ten lists from our students, at the very least we should ask,”Now that you have chosen ten, can you rank them, explaining why you chose that order?”  If we write articles or blogs, we should skip lists and focus on one thorough critique or discussion.

Ready to go listless? Here is a teaching idea to promote 21st century skills and an opportunity for authentic learning: Have students collect as many examples as they can of numbered lists from their own experience of the media, web surfing, or social networking: articles, blog posts, videos, etc. Then ask them to select one list they care about, research it, and rewrite it based on evidence to support a specific rank order. Of course, they will need to write their explanation in a manner  understandable to the list’s intended audience, including all the supporting evidence, appropriate voice, and conventions needed for publishing in that venue. Have them share it as a comment, blog post, or in-kind response to the original author.

“Listless” could become a very productive oxymoron.

I must share this awesome foursome of writing resources that grabbed my creative eye as I prepare for an online OK2Ask session  in August. 

Gone Google Story Builder (reviewed here). Layer writing on top of digital storytelling about writing using this tool that plays back the writing and editing process as a video. Here is a tongue in cheek (?) example. Imagine assigning students to write s story about writing, portraying two or more characters in the process. Suddenly, the writing matters because we are highlighting the actual process of writing. But the metalayer is that we can “see” the persona doing the writing. What a wonderful way to make students aware of narrative persona and of the thinking processes involved with writing. It would be great fun for a student to show an internal tug of war as he/she writes, such as the impulse to be wildly creative and the impulse to please admissions committees reading a college essay. To actually use this in class, you might have to start by simply brainstorming characters who could be writing and editing a piece together:  a parent and a teen, Jekyll and Hyde, a dog and a cat, Hemingway and Dickens, etc. It also might be easier to make this a partner project. Then ask students to jump back and describe the message of the writing “story” they have told. Layer on layer…

Five Sentences (reviewed here). This is simply a challenge to become more succinct and get to the point in emails. Email is a boring old people medium, but it is also a workplace (and adult) reality.  It is a very practical way to focus writing for a purpose. Students could start with examples of long emails they or their parents have received, rewriting them in five sentences.  Then they could write their own five sentence emails for a real purpose. [Five sentence end here…got the gist?] Many web sites have “contact us” boxes with limited text fields, so the five sentence limit is good practice. Brainstorm things teens might be asking for: a refund, a replacement for a defective product, information about something, etc. Then have them write the five sentences. Make a five sentence rule for emails to YOU as the teacher, and promise to respond in five sentences. Do you think parents would comply?

750 Words (reviewed here) Everybody needs a place to mind-dump. This private space is a good one to vent, collect pieces of writing you don’t know what to do with, lines from songs you like, or angry words you should never actually send via email or text. If your students have email accounts, they can have 750 words accounts. These personal spaces are great for daily write-to-think time, but they are even more likely to be used if students have permission to write off topic at last part of the time. Instead of having them write for you, have them write for themselves.  Keep a class 750 words account where students can enter simply the TOPIC they  wrote about with their own 750 Words today. That list will become inspiration for others.

Quest (reviewed here) Write a game. A long time ago on devices with small black and green screens, there was a game called Adventure. Players made choices about their moves based on text descriptions of where they were and what their options were. The writing must be very clear and consistent, but the option to use vivid description and clever plot twists makes text-based game-creation addictive. A science or history teacher could incorporate writing and gaming to reinforce concepts. For example, a game written by students could include accurate geologic formations or chemical reactions. A game set in a certain place and time in history could include encounters with actual historic figures. This seems a perfect collaborative task for a group of 2-3. Just realize that it could spin into weeks of game obsession. Got gifted? Toss this one at them as a way to use what they know and write their way much further.

I love summer for getting the creative juices flowing.

Recently I have heard the same message from teachers in meetings, TeachersFirst user surveys, and OK2Ask® sessions: “I would love to do more technology-infused lessons with my students, but  the computers/devices in our building are completely booked doing test practice, online testing,  and remediation software. They simply are not available for anything else.” [I can hear your groaning now.] I wish I could say these are isolated incidents, but, alas, they are not.

Trying to be dispassionate and analytical about this for a moment, why would this be the case?

• Schedule drives school. We would like to think that individual needs drive instruction, but any principal will tell you that the schedule drives everything. Scheduling technology access is part of that same engine.
• Schools pay a lot for that software to help bring kids up to grade level. They therefore make using it a priority.
• Schools pay dearly if their students are NOT up to grade level, and these packages can “fix” them, right?
• High quality, sophisticated software packages do a good job of observing student response patterns, collecting data about weaknesses, and presenting material aimed at the individual student’s needs. That’s what data-driven software is all about, right?
• Some folks (administrators?) simply have never seen technology used any way other than drill and practice.

All these reasons are understandable, even if regretable. The problem is that those who allow such monopoly on technology access do not realize the high price they and their students are paying.  I wonder: what is the cost in lost growth for students unable to partake of student-directed learning projects, unable to generate digital products to build and demonstrate deep understanding, unable to interact with peers from other times/locations to learn collaboratively, and unable to build “21st century skills” that require access to digital tools?

I have no idea how this “study” could be done, but I would love to do a bang for the buck comparison:

On the one hand, create a fancy formula that combines:

• Costs to the school for remediation/ test prep/testing software
• Gains in student achievement from said software
• Financial benefit (or loss prevention) to the school from this increased student achievement

On the other hand, generate a similar formula combining:

• Cost to the school for ongoing edtech coaching PD (peer to peer, please) so teachers can generate meaningful, student-directed, challenging learning experiences—knowing students will have access to the technology they need
• Costs to highly able or motivated students (and the community outside the school) for limiting student access to go above and beyond, to innovate and explore, to blast past the ceiling of standardized tests
• Cost to the school for network improvements and initiatives allowing student BYOD (bring your own device) where students may have them
• Financial benefit (or loss prevention) to the school from resulting increased student achievement in REAL terms (may include testing as ONE of several measures)

This last is the tough one. If any of us had the  dollars and cents formula to prove what our gut tells us is right, I would not be hearing the teacher complaints about lack of access. I keep hoping to be hit in the back of the head with a pendulum that takes education funding (and therefore priorities and schedule “engines”) back to seeing learning as something we must build, observe, and measure in many, many ways, each valued ($) and respected. But I don’t hear anybody yelling “DUCK!” yet.

The Last Day of School. There is nothing like it.

For kids, it has loads of meaning. It is the start of a temporary state of euphoria, often followed by boredom 72 hours later. For non-educator adults, it is a fond but distant memory of pool parties, bad preteen pranks, and high school get-togethers punctuated by teen excess and who-is-dating-whom.

For teachers, Last Day of School means much more. We are one of few professions that enjoys a built-in day to reflect and learn from our own hard work. I would assume that builders feel somewhat the same way when they complete a house, but their houses do not build lives of their own. Last Day of School is much more, and we are blessed to have it — not for the vacation it heralds, but for the prism of perspective.

Top Ten Reasons to Be Grateful for Last Day of School

10. Summer vacation. But this ranks only #10.

9. Kids who stop by to visit before they graduate.

8. Finding a handwritten thank you note on your desk. Ignore the misspellings. It still makes you cry.

7. Realizing, as you peel off the name stickers off the cubbies, that Bubba and Boopsie (you insert the names) really did come a long way this year.

6. Entering nothing but positive comments on a report card previously filled with “needs improvement.”

5. Packing up the classroom plant that seems to already miss the extra CO2 emanating from all the mouths in the room.

4. Finding that list of  “someday” ideas you started last fall and knowing you have a fresh start to use at least some of them in a couple of months.

3. Realizing that you are singing under your breath for the first time since spring madness set in.

2. Laughing and crying with your kids — at the same time.

1. Having a chance to stop and appreciate the things you and your students did that WORKED.

I love teachers. We are so immersed that we do not recognize our own laser-like focus. (Notice that I use a positive term, not the pejorative one, “blinders.”) First grade teachers notice whether people wait patiently in line at the checkout and count their express line items. English teachers notice all the incorrect apostrophes on billboards and news headlines. Biology teachers see microbes when someone rests a hand on a railing. Geometry teachers grumble when the guy at Lowe’s cannot cut the lumber at the correct angle.

The same focus of passion grows greater among university professors and successful professionals:  If the world only realized how important it is for kids to learn X. Why aren’t the schools teaching X? Studies come out promoting the importance of X in the future of our country and the world. Many of these studies make valid points about our changing world and the need for schools — and kids — to continuously adapt and change.

One current focus of passion is the movement to teach code in schools. With all the news about cybersecurity and hacking, there are those crying out for code to be a high school requirement. I have written about it before. I see value in this initiative, too. But reading an Edsurge post by Shuchi Grover  — and the Jeannette Wing article Gover refers to about teaching computational thinking —  made me stop and think. First, I want to know exactly what computational thinking is in layman’s terms. Wing explains that, sort of.  Grover argues that we should be teaching the thinking, not so much the code.

I wonder how much of the basics of computational thinking IS going on in schools by another name or under a different curricular (or non-curricular) umbrella. More importantly, I wonder about the precursors that lead to the actual named “computational thinking” terms and skills. The examples Wing gives make me look for points where students have opportunity and challenge to develop these skills. Wing’s example of organizing a backpack as analogous to “prefetching and caching” are actually what we teachers call “organizational skills.” Though not part of mega-tested curriculum, organizational skills are part of every elementary student’s classroom experience. Many of the other concepts she mentions are there in middle or high school: modeling, analyzing, planning, hypothesis-testing, etc. The compthinking terms are definitely not used in high school, but the skills are. Through the lens of our passion as K-12 teachers, we see each with a different label from what the university prof might call it. I would have to sit down and talk at length with a computer science/computational thinking person to discover the learning experiences we call by different names. But I do believe many of them are there for at least some of our students. I  know they were in the classes I taught for gifted.

What was not always there was the conversation about how the challenges we did related to things people do in real life. As a teacher, I did not know that the “higher level thinking challenges” I wrote into GIEPs and shared in my classroom were the skills my students-turned-scientists might later call “parallel processing” or “recursive thinking.” Teachers cannot possibly know all the ways the learning from their classroom can be morphed, renamed, and combined into an evolving career and contribution to the world.  I wish I had known thirty years ago about all the ways that logic games can play into lives in engineering, computers, writing, art, and more. As a grown up, I keep learning about careers and fields I did not know about ten years ago. This does not devalue what happens in our classrooms. What we need is the conversations between practicing professionals from the real world and those in classrooms to connections in what we each do. Instead of telling us to teach X, help us see how what our students do actually leads to X. And help the proponents of X see and hear what happens in schools that they may not realize. We need first to translate and underscore what happens within our respective lens of passion so students, parents, and professionals might see how it all connects. Instead of another requirement, let’s find where the seeds are already planted. As a lifelong learner, I would really like to know where computational thinking is already happening in classrooms and to validate and highlight it so kids could be able to say, “I am good at X and want to know more about it. We may call it something different at school but this is something I want to do with my life.”

In the meantime, I will try not to judge billboards or people in the checkout line, at least not out loud.

There is another kind of digital divide: when kids go from a “connected” learning environment back to a traditional classroom. Yesterday I visited a sixth grade classroom filled with students about to make an uncertain (and possibly sad) transition. Their current class is connected. They know the experience of collaborating and learning with students from schools across the country. For the past year, they have lived their roles in MySciLife (more info here).  They know how to approach a question,  look for information both digitally and in print, learn, then reshape what they have learned into a creative and personal connection. They talk about the challenge of taking a set of knowledge and an unlikely prompt that forces them to look at things from within a different role: as a force of nature, an obscure animal, or a weather phenomenon. They talk about how these creative challenges, nestled into an online community, have helped them learn from what other students have said and by asking about or commenting on others’ ideas. They flow smoothly from online tool to tool with the help of self-taught student “experts” within their class or by “teching it out” on their own. They stop and think about which tool best suits the task. These kids are connected at so many levels.

One of the students began talking about next year (a favorite topic among kids about to graduate into a new building). He was talking about what he would do in MySciLife next year. I did not have the heart to tell him that he won’t be in MySciLife next year. Why? First, because MySciLife is a limited pilot for now. More disturbingly, who knows whether he will have a science teacher who is as comfortable with breaking out of the usual teaching patterns and putting students in charge of their learning (helped by technology, of course).  Teachers operate at such widely varying  levels of technology comfort and availability that — even within the same district — a student may move back and forth from connected to disconnected and back again during the same school day or from year to year. The digital faultlines could cause a learning earthquake for anyone.

I wonder how long it will be before kids can expect a minimal level of “connectednesss” no matter where they are learning. I wonder how long it will take the slowly moving plates to stop dangerously rubbing against each other and settle to support learning without the divides. Kids are resilient and adjust to many teaching and learning approaches, but we owe them greater consistency. Think about the kids who suffer when we pull the plug. Then ask yourself how you can help a tech-timid colleague.

We’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’…

Remember how it feels to complete a project you are proud of? As teachers, the “projects” we complete are most often teaching tasks, such as getting our grades in on time or commenting on ALL our students’ drafts or completing rubrics for 20-150 projects.  Rarely do we celebrate something we have created. Our creative process — and a valuable one it is!– is most often applied to generating lesson ideas or coming up with a way to engage a struggling student. We just don’t have as many chances to proudly celebrate and share something we create.

Earlier this week, I found that feeling again. After a manic, messy, and thrilling creative push, TeachersFirst proudly announced Gettysburg by the Numbers, a way to learn about the watershed moment in the Civil War through infographics, data, and questions that are meaningful to us today– especially if you happen to be in middle school or early high school.

It feels good. It feels really good.  It feels good enough to make me wonder how many of our students get to experience that feeling. If we do our jobs well as teachers, they may experience it with authentic projects. But do we, as teachers, experience it enough to really know what kind of projects we should be designing and assigning? Do we know the experience of that lovin’ feelin about something we create? I don’t believe we can be effective as teachers unless we do. If we do not create things we are proud of –with some regularity–how can we really understand “authentic”?

I suggest that each of us should start by creating a me-portfolio where we can exhibit and share the lovin’ feelin’ moments we do have, however few and far between. Set up a simple web page using  Infinite.ly or Loose Leaves or Weebly and embed things you create elsewhere on the web (loads of tips here).  You could even house it on a simple wiki. What do you include? The sample projects you made to show kids how GoAnimate works or your Voki that explains meter in poetry. If you, like me, play with the tech toys and create samples as models of just to help you “figure it out,” save the samples as creative products of your own. There is a very good chance you will find yourself making better examples because you are collecting them– and getting that feeling. And you would be modeling a me-portfolio that you can show to kids. There is nothing wrong with letting your students know that you like that lovin’ feelin’,  and you hope you can all find it together.