Thinking out loud, here...

... about -- can we even stand another round? -- my Educational Philosophy.

I am actually pretty tired of thinking about my Educational Philosophy.  But for our final class assignment, we're supposed to put together our philosophy on how technology can support educational objectives.

In the form of a digital movie.

Shoot me in the head.

We did digital movies earlier in the class.  Mine was a retelling of one of the stories within the Epic of Gilgamesh.  I thoroughly enjoyed doing it, learned a lot in the process, and was reasonably happy with how it turned out.

But it's a story, see.  Storytelling works best, for stories.  IMHO, as they say on the net.

Nonetheless, a girl's gotta do what she's gotta do.

Attentive readers of my blog and website will recall that we last left the philosophical thread here, with my overall philosophy in the form of a non-linear PowerPoint presentation.  (More linearly inclined readers can find the gist of the same ideas here, in a previous thinking-out-loud blog post.)  I will attempt to peel off the concluding visual, save it as a jpg file, and post it herein (wish me luck, folks):

(SCORE!  Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?)

Anyway.  The overall educational philosophy runs along these lines:

Sensory Stage:  In this stage, the big picture objective is that kids make sense of their physical world.  By its end, we hope that they understand concepts such as gradations from small to large; categories such as colors and shapes; and recognize rhymes, patterns, rhythms and pitch.  If they end up knowing their numbers, letters and sounds, great: but it isn't necessary.  Far better that they be able to recite a repetoire of nursery rhymes and retell the fundamentals of ten of their best-beloved dog-eared books in their own words.  

In this stage, kids' learning is sensory and self-directed.  Young children learn principally through their senses: by picking objects up, turning them over, looking at them from different angles, dropping them and seeing what happens, shaking them and banging them and crumpling them and listening to what sounds ensue.  And yes, by putting them into their mouths and tasting them.  They are small and ceaseless scientists all on their own, conducting experiments all day long, figuring out how the world works.  As they build their own mental models, our job in helping them is to set them up in a reasonably safe laboratory and get out of their way.  

What we should do is to feed their souls: we read to them, early and often, from good books with strong narratives, so that they learn early to associate books with joy.  And we expose them, in developmentally appropriate snippets, to poetry and music and art and dance, giving them access to materials and instruments and costumes so they can engage themselves if they choose.   We take them on walks, and model looking closely at plants and animals, and show them how to classify leaves and bugs and trees and look up their names.  In doing these things, we begin to train their ears, to build their vocabularies, to build their curiosity and lay the foundations for the introduction, later, of great epic literature and Linnaeus' system of classification.  But that isn't, now, the point.  The point now is to celebrate the wonder of the sensory world.

So the role of technology in this phase is... limited.  Extremely limited.  Computers aren't sensory, see.  If kids this age are to learn through their senses, any activity based on a flat flickering screen is a poor substitute for the real thing.  Those computer games that promise to teach toddlers to recognize small-medium-large relative sizes  are a poor substitute for this...

Or to teach them their colors... a poor substitute for this...

Or to arrange puzzle pieces... a poor substitute for this...

Or that have preschoolers set up patterns... a poor substitute for this...

Or to learn letter sounds... a poor substitute for this.

And even more fundamental than any of that?  Let them go outside, and collect leaves, and organize them by shape, and tell them -- don't harp, don't preach, don't try to make them memorize -- just tell them, the names of the plants or trees that they're from.   Read them some comically illustrated Ogden Nash doggerel, then close the book and giggle.  That is multisensory.  That is interactive.  

This isn't.

The one place that I do see a role for technology is in audio sources.  Because feeding their souls, at this stage, entails flooding them with stories of all kinds.  I'm particularly partial to folk tales and fairy tales and myths (they build up the foundations of the universal Narrative Arc that will support, later, kids' ability to comprehend literature), but all kinds of stories will do.  And while there's no substitute for being read to out loud, audio books have their virtues too: kids can listen to them in the car, kids can choose what they like when they like, kids can hear the same story twenty times in a row, the voices never get hoarse.  

Concrete stage:  In this stage, kids need to learn discrete, foundational skills in literacy and math; and also to begin to amass background knowledge in content areas.  Learning is concrete and teacher-led.  The most foundational of the skills are reading and writing, and first priority in this stage must be given to literacy.  For a few lucky kids, literacy comes as easily and organically as walking and talking.  For the rest, method matters.  

All that said, I do see a role for technology at this stage -- still limited, but a little greater than in the previous stage.  Ironically, I see its greatest role in the precise areas that have been lambasted in this course: "drill and kill applications."

Consider, for example, Quartermile Math.  It is, without doubt, a drill program.  


It's set up so that as kids master one set of math facts, they move onto the next level "race"; as their speed improves, their horse moves faster.

Not cutting edge. Not higher order on Bloom's Taxonomy. Not creative. Not Web 2.0.

But here's the thing: to learn multiplication facts, you have to practice. One way or another, repetition is necessary. So, you can do it with flash cards, or you can do it with timed drills like Mad Minutes, or you can do it with math games like Muggins or FouxMath (which have the virtue of being truly "interactive"), or you can do it, for kids who like such things, with drill and kill software. Vive la difference. If a little bit of flickering screen helps the medicine go down, well, great.

Just don't abdicate and allow them to graduate third grade without having memorized them one way or another. Math facts are foundational: Kids need to have their multiplication facts down cold before they undertake the multi-step, abstract formatted operation of long division.

So in the Concrete stage, kids mostly should be working with controlled readers, learning to read;and pencil and paper, learning to write; 

and with base 10 blocks, learning to group and regroup;

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and with Judy clocks (and real analog clocks!) learning to tell time;

and manipulatives, learning the concepts of fractions;

and pegboards and cuisinaire rods, learning the concepts of multiplication.

/div>

But if kids prefer computer-based drill programs to flashcards or math games -- and some kids do -- then great!

And keep the audio books going, adding in biographies to build background knowledge in content areas.  And, in limited and teacher-led uses, start drawing on the resources of the Internet to pull in factual information.

Logical Stage:  At this stage, the big picture objectives are: students learn to write clear, well reasoned, persuasive essays; students transition to abstract and multi-step mathematical operations; students learn the concrete steps of, and the rationale behind, the scientific method; and students learn to discern and describe cause and effect relationships in both the sciences and in history.  Learning is increasingly abstract, and continues to be teacher-led.

By this age, students' need for sensory demonstration of abstract principles starts to wane.  If they've been educated well, they also have by now developed the tools to discriminate between main ideas, supporting details, and tangents; how to structure a logically sequenced narrative; and how to carry out multi-step operations in math and science. 

The role of technology therefore expands.  Its principal value at this stage is as a source of information in content areas.  Given the very vastness of the information available through the Internet, the challenge of the educator is to find ways to scaffold students as they learn to differentiate the wheat from the chaff.  Teacher modeling and full group discussions using tools such as SmartBoards are one option, though one whose cost may be prohibitive for many schools.  Narrowly defined WebQuests are another.

At this point technology may also be helpful, though it certainly is not necessary, to augment skill-building activities.  Programs such as Inspiration can facilitate brainstorming sessions and the progressive transfer of ideas into an organized outline; word processing can facilitate the mechanics of writing.  As they learn the skills associated with graphing and analyzing data, programs like Excel can facilitate the presentation aspects of the skills.  Kids studying literature can combine the time-honored practice of narration with podcasting.  Language students can use audio technology to drill vocabulary and check their accents.  These kinds of activities should always be considered means, though, not ends in themselves.

Synthesis and Evaluating Stage:  In this stage, students integrate their foundational skills and background knowledge, and develop the integrative and analytical skills with which they will assume responsibility for their own learning for the rest of their adult lives.  (Or not, as the case may be.)  This is the point at which they are capable of engaging in the "higher order" cognitive tasks of Bloom's Taxonomy.  Learning is based on abstract symbol systems and increasingly complex concepts; and transitions from teacher-led to self-led.

The role of technology expands considerably in this stage.  In school, the Internet becomes a major -- in some subjects, the principal -- source of content information.  Major teacher roles include guiding students in developing the skills of discernment, in ascertaining which sources are of greater reliability, in detecting bias, in attributing others' work fairly, and in integrating disparate piece parts into a coherent whole.  Technology also becomes a venue through which students can demonstrate their learning, through effective use of graphing and integration of visual and audio sources in presentations.

Outside of school, students of this age will utilize technology often and well, in endless capacities, as cheap and efficient communication, as entertainment, as a source of news and information, as a means of expressing their own creative vision.  That's fine.  That's great.  But just because many of them spend hours on end creating FaceBook pages, does not mean that schools should feel compelled to create opportunities for them to express themselves through class-based web sites.  They're figuring out how to design avatars all on their own, on their own time; why bother teaching it in school?!  Save those precious classroom hours and have them study Dante instead.  Thereafter, sure, let them demonstrate their understanding by making a funky visual representation on Tapped In.  Or, if they'd rather write an old-fashioned linear paper... that's okay too.  Really.

Evolution of an Educational Philosopher

I'm struggling a bit this week, trying to respond to the assignment about Digital Divide, the notion that there are significant and widening differences between the way that more privileged kids in wealthier schools utilize technology versus the way that poorer kids in more troubled school districts do.

I care about equity issues, and when I read through the syllabus prior to starting the course, I was very glad to see the issue on our agenda.  Now that I've read through the articles, though, I've realized that before I can tackle them frontally, on the class blog as per the assignment specifications, I have first to do a little sidebar analysis on where I see technology as supporting educational aims.  My hope is that this effort will provide a structure for the Digital Divide discussion and also a framework for the Educational Philosophy assignment downstream; I am, therefore, going to use this blog as my venue for hashing it out.

Evolution of an Educational Philosopher: A True and (Not-yet) Digital Story

Scene I: Thesis  

I started out as progressive as they come.  I swallowed John Holt hook line and sinker.  I gave the Guinea Pigs unfettered access to dress-up clothes and art supplies and magnified bug-boxes.  I surrounded them with books of all sorts, and read to them extensively every night: fairytales and myths and Lord of the Rings; but also biographies and Childcraft encyclopedias and The Way Things Work.  Alone amongst my fellow Fairfield County moms, I was ruthless in defending their downtime, fiercely protective of their right to be left alone.  When they got old enough, I sent them to marvelous schools dedicated to child-led, inquiry-based, collaborative project-oriented pedagogies.  For quite some time, this all seemed to work.  They all were creative, imaginative, engaged and delightful.  My eldest learned to read, early and effortlessly, exactly as John Holt and the Whole Language proponents said kids should, as naturally and organically as she'd earlier mastered walking and talking.

Scene II: Antithesis

A few years later, though, my middle child didn't learn to read, even after his Montessori school provided substantially more explicit and more structured instruction than my eldest, or other students in his class, ever needed.  As well, I noticed that my eldest, by then ensconced in a similarly progressive Quaker school, was not making progress in certain areas.  On the creative stuff, she was positively blossoming: she wrote poetry, she wrote and acted in plays, she assembled decahedrons out of straws to study engineering principles; she was grappling with conflict resolution strategies and learning lots of international affairs; and she was very, very happy.  But she wasn't learning discrete skills: math facts, computational sequencing, spelling rules, mechanics of paragraph writing.  I wrote earlier about the limits of the child-led, inquiry-based model: this is the point at which I began to realize that, left to their own devices, many kids won't choose to practice their penmanship, or memorize their multiplication tables, or master the difference between its and it's.  Nonetheless, these things are still worth learning.

As is my habit when confronted with any kind of problem, I hit the library ("just like Hermione," groans the eldest, now).  Two very different sets of educational philosophers ultimately helped me make sense of where we were.  The first were practitioners in various facets of learning disability research, notably Sally Shavitz and Louisa Moats.  Their research was quite persuasive: struggling readers could succeed, but they required certain, well-documented, interventions: direct instruction, highly structured and carefully sequenced skills instruction, many more rounds of practice than kids without disabilities generally need, and frequent review of material already mastered.  

Not a lot of scope for child-led choices or lounging-on-the-rug or inductive learning, here.

The second set of educational philosophers who served as my Virgil at this stage of my journey were, somewhat implausibly given my attitudes and circumstances at the time, advocates for a return to what they call "classical" education, notably Dorothy Sayers and her most avid intellectual heir,  Susan Wise Bauer.  The classical education movement, which currently seems to have its greatest traction within the homeschooling community, views education in terms of developmental stages: in the first stage, from about grades one through four, students should focus on amassing facts, mastering discrete skills, and absorbing stories and poetry.  In the second stage, from about grades five through eight, students should increasingly learn how to organize and analyze what they know, through increased focus on skills like outlining, learning the mechanics of good writing, and studying logic itself.  In the third stage, from about ninth to twelfth grade, students should increasingly take on higher-order tasks of evaluating and synthesizing their learning and presenting their conclusions forcefully.

I hadn't, then, come across the model of Bloom's taxonomy that we discussed in class several weeks ago.  But it's presenting the same idea; and also linking Bloom's construct of lower-order cognitive processes based on recall up through higher-level cognitive processes based on evaluating and creating to stages in human development, much along the lines of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  The idea is that before kids can write symphonies, they need first to learn their fingering and scales; then move to reading notation fluently; then learn to transpose keys; then learn the mechanics of theory and the structure of the symphonic form.  Then they can write symphonies.  

We spent over a year wandering in this particular circle of hell, but ultimately my guides led us out of it: based on the research of Shavitz and Moats, we sent Guinea Pig #2 to the Windward School, which, just as the research indicated, enabled him to become fully literate in about two years.  And we supplemented Guinea Pig #1's skills in math and spelling with specific, highly structured, sequenced work at home.  

Scene III: Angst

At a tactical level, we'd solved the specific needs of our specific Guinea Pigs at a specific moment in time.  At a theoretical level, though, my head was still reeling.  Which was better, inquiry-led or direct instruction?  Which was right, whole language or multisensory Orton-Gillingham-based?  Which is a better use of a second grader's language arts period, creating original books in writers' workshops or, as Susan Wise Bauer recommends, memorizing poetry and doing dictation?

As well, a still small voice kept nagging at me: so kids whose parents can afford it, get to go to inquiry-based Quaker schools with tiny classes and long blocks of time, where they can follow their bliss and build decahedrons out of straws... but the public school kids have to drill and kill to show improvement on CMTs?  What's up with that?

And then, even within our own family: the kids without learning disabilities get to put on full scale Shakespeare productions and fly off to Florida to do Original Play with the manatees... but the one with disabilities sits in a traditional desk facing forward reciting the letters of common but non-phonetic works in unison with his classmates?  What's up with that?

As usually happens, it was the Guinea Pigs themselves who pulled me out of analysis and back into the real world.  After a year or so, I realized that my daughter, who had grown to hate math because (however good her grasp on the underlying concepts) she kept getting wrong answers (due to computational errors), was vastly more contented once she got the basics down cold.  On the flip side, I realized that my son was vastly more contented sitting straight up in a traditional desk before an extremely directive teacher and actually learning to read than he ever had been lying on cushions on the rug and declining invitations to create Little Books in the absence of skills.

I realized that both of our kids, who were in schools as far apart on the pedagogical spectrum as was possible, were in a school that was "reasonably right" for them.  That there's no best model; just better and less good fit between model and particular child.

I also realized that neither school was perfect, even for the specific kid for which it was pretty good.  Every choice has attendant trade-offs.  My daughter's school, which is marvelous at deep delves into content areas, necessarily trades off breadth -- there's only so much time -- and is hit-or-miss on skills.  My son's school, which is all about skills and also is absolutely ruthless about time management around clearly defined priorities, is not particularly good at fostering creativity and wonder.

I realized that as parents, we were in charge of ensuring that the holistic needs of our Pigs were met.  It was our job to supplement our daughter's inquiry-based, child-led school experience with structured, sequenced skills; and to supplement our son's highly structured, skills-focused school experience with experiences that fed his heart and soul.

Scene IV: Synthesis

I end up here:

Any school that has made a strong commitment to any defined pedagogy, even out-there pedagogies like Waldorf, has something precious that most schools lack: clarity of purpose.  This is extremely valuable: to administrators and teachers, in making the inevitable tradeoffs; and to parents, in communicating a vision to determine the appropriateness of fit.  My daughter's school ultimately is about matters of heart and soul (and they are very good at it); my son's is ultimately about imparting skills (and they are very good at it).   There really is a difference, and what is really right for one kid can be really wrong for another.

That said, there actually are quite a few things that both schools, radically different though they are, do; things that have come to characterize, for me, the elements of schools that are happy places where kids can flourish.  In both schools, every single adult-- from the head of school to the office secretary to the bus driver -- makes eye contact and greets every kid by name.  In both schools, kids of all ages have time, every day, to run around and get some air.  In both schools, the kids are dismissed early on Fridays so the teachers have a block of time for development and preparation.  In both schools, the teachers communicate early, often, formally and informally with parents, about small triumphs and everyday matters as well as about Problems.  In both schools, kids and teachers alike laugh a lot.  Well, that stuff matters too, doesn't it.

I see a lot of value in the child development model proposed by Piaget: the notion that kids move through a cognitive progression, starting with very sensory-based and egocentric experiences and progressing, over time, to increasingly abstract and symbol-based reasoning.  

I therefore end up, in the preschool years, very attracted to Montessori methods of education: a carefully defined environment filled carefully limited, sensory based materials; within which children make their own choices of what they want to work on.  Teacher-led definition of space; child-led autonomy on how, within those parameters, they'll spend their time. 

As children reach elementary school age, Piaget's model suggests they progress to more concrete and logical operations.  At this point, the educational philosophy laid out by the proponents of classical education appeals to me.  Work diligently on mastering symbol systems (reading and numeracy); teach facts and simple classification tools in content areas; take them on nature walks armed with field guides and sketchbooks and teach them to look.  And feed their souls by flooding their environment with quality literature, music, and art.

As they get to middle school age, both Piaget and the classical educators say they are ready to shift to more abstract skills: outlining, expository writing, comparing, and discussing.  They're ready for logic as a subject and ready for multi-step operations in math.

By high school, they'll have both skills and background knowledge.  They'll be ready to take on higher-order tasks of evaluating and synthesizing their learning and presenting their conclusions forcefully.  They'll be able to speak with discipline and order, out of knowledge beyond their own immediate experience.

There ya go.

2/19 Assignment: Mid-Course Reflections

This course has me out of my comfort zone.

I'm a text type at heart, a reader and writer and evaluator of words.  On all the various "learning styles" instruments that I've ever used, I consistently rate as relentlessly (some who know me well might say, "ceaselessly") verbal.  So it's not just the technology itself that is throwing me, but also, more broadly, the emphasis on image-based rather than language-based content.

It's not a bad thing, to be out of my comfort zone.

Nor is it a bad thing, to be confronted (some who know me well might say, "bonked over the head with a baseball bat") with my own learning style and how it informs my own selection, evaluation, and presentation of content.  

As well, I have some pretty deep-rooted ideas about ways in which both image-based content and rapid-fire presentation can cause more harm than good.  This is a long story, and not necessarily appropriate for this venue; but suffice it to say that due to these ideas and the values arising out of them, we do not have cable in our home, nor any sort of video games; nor any beeping handheld devices.  Truly, I am not a Luddite.  But I have purposely designed a life with considerably fewer technology-based interruptions than most modern Americans'; a life that is intentionally language-rich and which intentionally favors literature, art and music that have stood the test of time.

This course hasn't changed that, nor would I expect it to.  What it has done, in a big picture sense, is challenge me to consider whether, and if so how, I might draw lines differently in a classroom than in our home.  

Having read ahead on the syllabus (as my eldest would groan, "just like Hermione,") I have also been challenged to try and sort out how technology "fits in" with my emerging educational philosophy.  Because even though that isn't exactly how the syllabus question is posed, that's the order in which I have to do it: first, articulate an overall educational philosophy; only then consider where and how technology might (I groan myself) "add value."

Finally, at the most obvious level, I have been challenged to learn the technologies covered in class, though with the notable exception of the WEB SITE, this hasn't thus far been as bad as I feared.  I've been particularly thrilled to develop rudimentary blogging skills, so much so that I launched a new one to chronicle our recent family vacation.  It was great fun to do, and my father-in-law, at least, enjoyed reading it.  

I hope, in the remainder of the semester, that I can effect my vision of drawing upon the narratives and art of several different ancient civilizations to complete each of the remaining assignments, so that I end up with a portfolio of stories that I've always loved, brought to new life by technologies I never really considered.

2/5 Assignment Part B: Inquiry-Based Learning

I am not yet in a classroom, so I haven't yet had the opportunity to use inquiry-based learning as a teacher.

I am a parent, of three extraordinarily curious and engaged guinea pigs, widely spaced in age and very divergent in interests, so I have had the opportunity to observe them engage in learning by seeking to answer questions.  Often these explorations are self-initiated and self-led; other times I do considerable, effectively teacher-led, framing.

As well, between the three of them, the guinea pigs have spent a total of ten years thus far in schools devoted to child-led, inquiry based pedagogies (one Montessori; one Quaker).  So I've had considerable opportunity to see how they fare within that kind of framework.

My reactions are complicated.  The short answer to the assignment prompt is: Yes, absolutely.  I fully expect to utilize inquiry-based learning in my classroom.  I wholeheartedly believe that kids learn best when they are deeply engaged; and that deep engagement entails being vested in the subject, following their own curiosities, moving their bodies, learning from each other and not just from the teacher, having fun.  Every word of John Holt's classic How Children Learn: I believe it all.  Obviously I am deeply, passionately attracted to the vision.  (Why else spend the family fortune on tuitions?) 

Yet.

Much as I am drawn to the vision of the promise of inquiry-based learning -- much as the ideals expressed in that vision inform my parenting every day, drive my decisionmaking about next year's schools for the Pigs, compel me to go back to school myself and enter into teaching as a second career -- still.  

The school choices we've made on behalf of the Pigs have given me more exposure to what inquiry-based learning actually looks like in practice than most parents, and even most educators, have had.  And I have come, regretfully, to see real limitations in addition to the very real strengths to the model.

• Inquiry-based learning works better for content areas (history, science, literature) than for acquisition of discrete skills (learning to decode, mastering reading fluency, computational skills, spelling). 
  
• Inquiry-based learning works best for students who are already motivated, self-directed, and physically self-controlled; students who are (for whatever reason) suffering from motivational, attentional and/or behavioral issues can easily "hide" in the bustle and activity of collaborative inquiry-based classrooms.
• Inquiry-based learning, which by definition evolves around the unique interests and talents of the students in each learning project, does not lend itself to the inculcation of consistent time management and the development of other organizational skills.
• Inquiry-based management requires substantially more from teachers, in terms of preparation, classroom management, imagination and flexibility, and organized follow-through to synthesize and reinforce the learning.  Not all teachers are up to the task.
• Inquiry-based learning also requires a level of teacher autonomy, in both content and in time (true inquiry-based learning requires long blocks of time, for example) that is difficult to effect in large schools; and
• Inquiry-based learning is a very powerful tool for providing depth of learning -- for delving long and deep into one subject.  Public schools organized around standardized test-driven mandates necessarily have to focus on breadth of learning.  It's very hard, therefore, for them to find the time.

1/29 Assignment: My NETS-S Standard

The content area that I have selected for the purpose of this course is middle grade (grades 5-8) social studies.

Those who know me, may be a bit surprised. I am a student in the Special Education department within the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions, enrolled in a program to earn a master's degree and state certification for K-12 special education. I am particularly passionate about teaching reading. Why, then, middle grade social studies?

There are reasons, of course. Some of them have to do with my career aspirations once I've completed my coursework: to fulfill the"highly qualified" requirements in social studies and literature; and to work with middle grade level students once I'm certified. The more important reasons relate to my educational philosophy, which I haven't yet put to paper (or bytes), that particular assignment not coming up for some weeks yet. But it's percolating, and I want the standard I select now to be consistent with where I want to go, then.

Philosophically, I draw a distinction between three great tasks of education:
- Motivation
- Acquisition of skills; and

- Integration of content.

At this point, I believe that of these three tasks, "educational technology" can provide the greatest support to instructional objectives in content.  So I chose the content area that I thought I'd have the most fun with.

(Speaking of holding so many "priorities" simultaneously that we effectively have none at all...)  Here are the State of Connecticut content standards, which in turn are supported by the standards defined by the National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S):

Content Standard 1 (Historical Thinking): Students will develop historical thinking skills, including chronological thinking and recognizing change over time; contextualizing, comprehending and analyzing historical literature; researching historical sources; understanding the concept of historical causation; understanding competing narratives and interpretation; and constructing narratives and interpretation.

Content Standard 2 (Local, US, and World History): Students will use historical thinking skills to develop an understanding of the major historical periods, issues and trends in United States history, world history, and Connecticut and local history.

Content Standard 3 (Historical Themes): Students will apply their understanding of historical periods, issues and trends to examine such historical themes as ideals, beliefs and institutions; conflict and conflict resolution; human movement and interaction; and science and technology in order to understand how the world came to be the way it is.

Content Standard 4 (Applying History): Students will recognize the continuing importance of historical thinking and historical knowledge in their own lives and in the world in which they live.

Content Standard 5 (United States Constitution and Government): Students will apply knowledge of the U S Constitution, how the U S system of government works and how the rule of law and the values of liberty and equality have an impact on individual, local, state and national decisions.

Content Standard 6 (Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens): Students will demonstrate knowledge of the rights and responsibilities of citizens to participate in and shape public policy, and contribute to the maintenance of our democratic way of life.

Content Standard 7 (Political Systems): Students will explain that political systems emanate from the need of humans for order, leading to compromise and the establishment of authority.

Content Standard 8 (International Relations): Students will demonstrate an understanding of how the major elements of international relations and world affairs affect their lives and the security and well-being of their community, state and nation.

Content Standard 9 (Places and Regions): Students will use spatial perspective to identify and analyze the significance of physical and cultural characteristics of places and world regions.

Content Standard 10 (Physical Systems): Students will use spatial perspective to explain the physical processes that shape the Earth’s surface and its ecosystems.

Content Standard 11 (Human Systems): Students will interpret spatial patterns of human migration, economic activities and political units in Connecticut, the nation and the world.

Content Standard 12 (Human and Environmental Interaction): Students will use geographic tools and technology to explain the interactions of humans and the larger environment, and the evolving consequences of those interactions.

Content Standard 13 (Limited Resources): Students will demonstrate that because human, natural and capital resources are limited, individuals, households, businesses and governments must make choices.

Content Standard 14 (Economic Systems): Students will demonstrate that various economic systems coexist, and that economic decisions are made by individuals and/or governments, influenced by markets, cultural traditions, individuals and governments in the allocation of goods and services.

Content Standard 15 (Economic Interdependence): Students will demonstrate how the exchange of goods and services by individuals, groups and nations creates economic interdependence and how trade results in change.

 

Inquiry-Based Learning: A True and (Nearly) Digital Story

You want me to what??!

You're kidding, right?

What am I supposed to do with this thing?

Look -- the bark matches perfectly! Is it a match?

Whaddaya mean, it has needles??!

I'm supposed to look up, too?!

All right, all right -- how about this one, then?

How come this guy's bark is so splotchy??

Score!

Hey, wait-- what's this stuff?

Did it come from one of these things?

Woah -- willya look at that??

Can we do this one next?

It's close, but how come the real leaf is fatter and less pointy than the one in the picture?

Woah -- what's this stuff??

Is this really a birch?

Hmm... the bark looks like an aspen, but the leaf looks like a birch --

which is it?

Now this one, on the other hand -- a perfect match, or what?

Who's been eating this guy's bark?

Hey!! Is this it?

The bark was perfect, the needles are good, but what's up with the cone??

Can I have my snack now?

Hey-- can I use the camera for a minute?

Inquiry-based learning: When it's good, it's very, very good.

(Special thanks to Guinea Pig #2, for humoring me in what I billed simply as a Walk in the Woods...)

1/22 Assignment: Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Concept Map: Background to UDL:

Background: Universal Design for Learning (UDL) first evolved from an architectural movement. After the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 imposed requirements that public buildings be accessible to individuals with disabilities, many buildings were "retrofitted" with access ramps and other modifications that were in many cases unattractive. Universal Design was a movement which emphasized the concept of full accessibility from the earliest planning phase; and the integration of access with aesthetics. Designers quickly realized that the concept of "access" gave rise to unexpected benefits to a much wider constituency than was originally intended: curb cuts initially intended to enable wheelchair access turned out also to benefit parents pushing strollers and kids wheeling on Heelies; closed captioning technologies initially developed for the deaf turned out also to benefit yuppies exercising in gyms and opera lovers who don't speak Italian. It was inspirational.

Concept Map: Philosophy of UDL

Applying Universal Design to Education: The Universal Design to Learning (UDL) movement seeks to extent the concepts of "full access" beyond physical access to buildings to access to the curriculum itself. In so doing, it seeks to utilize technologies such as voice recognition and text-to-speech software that remove barriers to content that students with disabilities such as limited sight might experience (this would be analogous to the wheelchair-bound and deaf individuals in the architectural examples above); but also to look more broadly and apply lessons from recent brain research about learner differences and determine how technology might serve their access needs as well (this would translate to the mothers with strollers and the opera lovers in the example).

Brain research suggests that learning is distributed across three interconnected networks: recognition (which are specialized to sense and assign meaning to patterns, and allow us to identify information and concepts); strategic (which generate and oversee mental and motor patterns and plans); and affective (which are associated with emotional responses, and enable us to engage with tasks, learning and people). In each of these networks, the brain utilizes both "hierarchical" (gestalt and parts-to-whole) processing; and "lateral" (multiple simultaneous thoughts, such as recognizing multiple colors simultaneously) processing. All people utilize all three networks and both types of processing; however, individuals vary widely in both which network is best developed and in which type of processing is easier; which results in considerable learning differences.

Having identified those differences, UDL seeks to broaden access to learning through adherence to three principles: to use multiple formats to present information and enable students to demonstrate mastery; to draw upon multiple pathways such that learners are presented with the same material through formats that "hit" upon multiple senses to reinforce learning; and to draw on multiple forms of motivation to engage students.

Concept Map: Implementing UDL

Implementation of UDL: Effective implementation of UDL hearkens back to many of the same principles that Sara Dexter outlined in her eTIPs article in last week's reading. Educators must start with crystalline clarity about their instructional goals, as well as detailed knowledge about their students' individual needs and the media options that might support them. Thereafter, the educator develops a plan for differentiated instruction; drawing upon a full range of access-oriented technologies (such as text-to-speech), media that allow multiple formats to demonstrate mastery (such as allowing students to present material in a digital presentation rather than paper-and-pencil test), and formats that support multiple sensory pathways (such as using video and audio clips in addition to text-based sources). Supporting all of this, and again consistent with Dexter's eTIPS, must be sufficient support in terms of both infrastructure and professional development.

"When Teddy Bears Go Blogging"....

... unintended audiences applaud.

Lucky kids, these second graders.  Their teachers invite djembe drummers into the classroom.  Let them get wet messing around with water wheels.  Devote hours of instructional time building Ms. Frizzle-style panoramas of Bat Caves and the Great Barrier Reef.  Organize storyteller visits.  Take them to puppet shows.  Muck around with K'Nex in class.  Drip maple syrup onto the carpet.  Wear pajamas to school.

Of course we're lucky too, that these energetic and inspired teachers put up a blog so we all can see what they've done, and learn from and be inspired by it.  Surely the kids' families and friends also enjoyed seeing the pictures on line.  Technology allows Ms. Sherry and Ms. Sawyer to document and disseminate the fabulous activities they've done with their classes, easily, quickly, and cheaply.  Which is terrific!

But it's the Doing, rather than the Documenting and Disseminating, that is the primary instructional point.  

The idea warrants underscoring.  It is easily lost.  It illustrates the point that Sara Dexter made in her eTips article, that educational technology does not possess inherent instructional value.  These kids' teachers gave them the time, material, and freedom to make a mess, to bang loudly, to go outdoors, to conduct their own experiments.  That is what makes these students fortunate.  That is how their imaginations were captured and their spirits sent to soar.  That is what supported what Dexter calls the "learning outcomes."  That the activities were attractively blogged is an extra bonus, a bonus whose value accrues principally to us, a largely unintended audience.

Certainly, kids do benefit from making a record of their activities, and referring back to it, and thereby reinforcing their learning.  And the blog effects that consolidation beautifully; that is the piece that is, in Dexter's terms, the "value added."  However, had the kids put together an old-fashioned lap book with pasted-in snapshots, that too would have done the job (albeit more expensively, and less portably, and with far less audience reach).  We, the anonymous Internet public, are actually the principal beneficiaries of the blog.  The kids benefit from...

Good teaching.

Always worth remembering, that.

You Gotta BE the Book...

When I told Guinea Pig #3 about the principles of Jeffrey Wilhelm's opus, You Gotta BE the Book, she was quite enthusiastic.

I had a lot of ideas. My first thought was that she could enact this week's Torah portion (this week happens to be one of the Greatest Hits, the presentation of the Ten Commandments...). When that failed to inspire her, I suggested that she might want to act out the story of Vasilisa, the type of good strong heroine who warms modern mothers' hearts. No, not her thing. Really, I would have been fine with Hermione.

But no, if GP#3 was gonna BE the Book, she was gonna be... a princess. This is her idea of what a princess looks like. (It's actually her enactment of a specific princess, a Desert Princess, from a particular page of the well-beloved book. Having not yet had the Copyright Law class session yet, I had my doubts about scanning the illustration in and loading it onto the blog. Nor would I have had the faintest idea of how to do so, even if I could.)

Anyway. Drama, to lure reluctant readers in. Read-alouds with exaggerated voices, to make the characters come alive. Physical enactment of the stories, to get kids to internalize the core of the narratives. Costumes!

Well. How great is that? What kind of crank-o-head could possibly find fault, with that?

And yet. The gestalt of the thing -- a bright, motivated teacher going to great lengths to find a way to reach his most reluctant readers and, in large measure, succeeding in sparking their enthusiasm through the use of drama -- is, obviously, terrific. The devil is in the details.

It is really, really great to get reluctant readers to understand that There Be Treasure Here, in literature. It is really great, to use drama to get them inside characters' motivations and to enable them to fill in the unstated parts and to form images of the characters and the worlds and the actions inside their heads. It is really great, to motivate them to go on to the library and pick out books to read on their own, outside of class.

Wonderful, all of it. But not to be confused with actually teaching them to read, with the long slow slog of teaching that sizable segment of every school population to whom reading comes hard, how to decode. How to develop fluency. How to tackle multisyllable and weird-looking words. How to develop automaticity, which really is a precondition to the enjoyment of reading. Honest.

That young readers be motivated is necessary. But it is not sufficient. Reading is a skill, with specific subskills that need to be mastered by all, and directly taught to those who need it. The marvelous activities with which Wilhelm engaged his reluctant readers help set the context in which kids will be willing to put in the long hard effort to gain that mastery. Particularly the kids with learning disabilities, who have to put in many more hours of greater effort. As educators, we have to do all that we can to help them understand that all that work is worth it.

Because, of course, it is. Truly, there be treasure here.

Then they (and we) still, alas, have got to do the work.

1/15 Assignment: Response to Sara Dexter's article

On eTIPs - Educatonal Technology Integration and Implementation Principles, by Sara Dexter

Early in her article, almost as an aside, Sara Dexter tosses off a comment that to my mind merits closer and more careful focus than she herself gives in.  She writes: Educational technology does not possess inherent instructional value..."

I'm a Big Picture kind of gal.  I like to start off with a rock-solid crystal-clear laying-out-of-the-fundamentals before plunging into the minutiae.  And this point is very fundamental indeed; so fundamental that I truly wished Dexter had honored it with at least a full paragraph of its own.  

Educational technology does not possess inherent instructional value.  It is, in other words, a means, not an end in itself.  The mere presence of technology in a classroom does nothing at all, if not used; and nothing of instructional value, if not used with thought and care to support educational objectives beyond the technology itself.  Technology provides tools: no more, no less.  With tools, we can do things -- draw upon information from disparate sources; aggregate and present data; stitch together images and words and sounds; communicate quickly and cheaply.  Today's technology offers tools of great potential, which like all other tools are only as useful as the person wielding them is skillful.  And, also like many other tools, can be misused and even dangerous.

I wish Dexter had laid that sort of thing out, explicitly, in her prelude.   From the rest of her text it is clear that she does, indeed, believe it.

That said, much of what she did write makes good sense.  In the article, Dexter lays out two broad principles for the selection, implementation and integration of technology:

1. The teacher must act as an instructional designer, planning the use of the technology so it will support student learning; and
2. The school environment must support teachers in this role by providing adequate technology support.

The second point is plain common sense: at the most basic, physical level, the classroom must have enough outlets and Internet connections and so on; at the nearly-as-basic (but immensely harder to achieve, particularly in large institutions) level, teachers must be allowed the autonomy to determine which technologies support their instructional objectives (what Dexter calls "learning outcomes").

The first point is the nub of the matter, and is very hard indeed.  What Dexter is saying, rightly, is that in order for technology to serve education, its purpose has to be planned in a manner that supports learning, and its execution has to be managed in a manner consistent with the plan.  Otherwise you are left either with: a) dusty and poorly functioning machines languishing in the back of the classroom; or b) a handful of boys racing through their seatwork so as to jostle over computer games.

At the very outset, the teacher must have succinct clarity about what the "learning outcomes" are -- the teacher must do what Steven Covey, in Principle-Centered Leadership, calls Beginning with the End in Mind.  In school as in business, this is far easier to articulate than to do.  Thereafter, the teacher must realistically assess what Dexter calls the "cognitive demands of the user" -- that is, what the student must be able to do to use the technology effectively.  This requires both a detailed flowchart-like understanding of each small step in the utilization of the technology and a realistic understanding about the capabilities among the students.  (Even just locating an Internet address requires accurate spelling, keyboarding, and ability to scan.  Young kids with reading difficulties may not be able to do this most basic step on their own.)  As well, she must be able to discern what is true "value added" in Dexter's terms -- what the technology is actually doing in support of the "learning outcome" -- from the whiz-bang that can be seductive to students and adults alike, but does not necessarily support instructional objectives.

It is easy, and tempting, to label "quiet and occupied in front of their terminals" as "learning."  But the labeling doesn't actually make it so.  Dexter's article is a useful reminder to keep thinking through the difference.