I was just listening to the Automators podcast today. In the discussion, one of the hosts (David Sparks) told about the time he took advantage of the opportunity to learn from a master woodworker. In the early part of his time there, David was studying the tools in the shop. The artist stopped his work to refocus David. The artist said that the tools were immaterial. He "would use his teeth if he had to." Too often, we make the same mistake in school. We focus on the tools and design our lessons that way. When I say tool, I am talking about all sorts of things, such as devices, web interfaces, and apps. Starting to design a lesson or even unit of study by picking the tool is wrong on so many levels. I’m not saying that the tools we use are important. Far from it. What I am saying is that we should pick a tool based on how well it helps learners reach the learning outcome we are looking for. Let’s be honest. The digital tools of today are going to change and evolve soon. Who knows what we will really be using in 5-10 years. When we look at what skills are being sought after in the workplace, it’s not the technical skills at the top of the list, it is the “soft-skills.” I talk about the need for soft skills and several articles highlighting this need in my post here (link) No digital tool in existence (or in the future) is the end all, be all. What matters is the teacher designing lessons built on relationships and strong, research based pedagogy. Digital tools offer us opportunities that we didn’t have possible before. We have the ability to collaborate with others that are not in the room with us. We can design experiences and challenges that require learners to work on interdependent teams, develop stronger personal accountability skills, and interact with a wide range of people in and out of the classroom. As learners work with these challenges, they must build the necessary content skills and learning needed to solve the problem. In other words, the tool(s) should be chosen to suit the need. When we teach learners to analyze a situation and problem and then select an appropriate tool to use, we empower that learner to be more confident in any situation that arises. Links
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This week, I took a big leap with my classes. I am giving them control of the course. I've laid out the Challenges for them because they were pre-set prior to the year and other parties are depending on them. These challenges are not just "cool projects" that I will grade and then we put it away. These are actual needs that are in our community or program. Past the fact that they need to solve a problem for someone else through their work this year, I gave up the method of solving it to the class. They will determine everything from deliverable dates, grades, rubrics, even the details of what and how any lessons take place. When I announced it, one of the students looked at me a little worried. He said, "wow, that's scary." I know. I'm a little scared to. I know it will be great for them, but it's hard to give up control like that. To give the students a frame of reference so they can start off in a positive direction, they are treating this adventure as if they are starting their own company. In essence, the class is imagining that they have just decided to start a consulting firm. They have clients that they are completing projects for, and they have stockholders that they have to answer to as well. The clients are the people who are receiving the final products from their project challenges. The stockholders are our administration and school district. In the end, they must complete the projects professionally, on time, and with the highest quality. For the district, they must demonstrate that each and every member of the team (class) has mastered all of the state standards for the course and any other district requirements such as industry certifications. We started out using a deck of discussion cards from MethodKit. For this exercise, It makes sense that I am using the "MethodKit for Startups" pack at this point. The first thing I think of when looking at our engineering program is our goal. High school pre-college engineering programs are not there to create engineers. The goal of any high school program should be to develop engineering students. It is the responsibility of colleges and Universities develop engineers. With that goal in mind, it is much easier to create a quality, sustainable program. When I focus on developing engineering students, I am able to navigate through the sea of options, equipment, and vendors all competing for my attention. The foundation of a good engineering student boils down to three skills: 1) team-work, 2) communication, and 3) problem-solving. Everything else is just window dressing. If you want support for this position, read my earlier post on soft skills.
In schools, administration buildings, and legislative chambers all across the country, debates over curricular necessities rage on daily. Discussions and even arguments take place over things like active & teaming vs lecture, or what content will be taught and when. All of this is driven largely from a desire to prepare students and provide the best education. It is no secret that an educated population improves the economy for everyone and reduces crime. The debates center on content and delivery. Unfortunately, a key component is always missing. The discussions never include so called "soft" skills. Skills such at teamwork, communication, and problem-solving. Other soft skills include empathy and resilience. The harsh reality is that if we do not actively address these skills in our classrooms, then students are not prepared to join the work force. Technical or "hard" skills are important for future success as well, but without the soft skills to go with them, then we are sorely limited. If you want support for this position, read through the next three paragraphs. If you are on board and want to see ways to bring these soft skills into the classroom, then skip past this next part. Participation is more than just showing up. Failure is an option. In fact, if you are really working hard, then you are going to fail. On top of that, you will fail a lot. The same is true for your students. If you are pushing them to improve and expand their boundaries, then they will fail as well. Failure is the best thing that can happen to people. In his book, The Ultra Mindset, Travis Macy (@TravisMacy) states: “We constantly send our kids -and ourselves- the message that if you struggle something is wrong. If you’re doing something right, it will feel nice and easy; it will be fun. Struggle should be halted as soon as possible at all times because it will probably lead to suffering and, even worse, failure. The problem with the message above is that it flies in the face of what we know to be the truth about learning and general process, namely, that if you never struggled, growth is almost impossible because lack of growth only shows complacency with in a comfort zone.” He's completely correct. As educators and parents, we must let our learners (children, students, peers, etc) fail. Don't forget, our job is to educate. Just letting them fail is not educating. Providing the necessary tools, instruction, guidance, and support to allow the learner to recover from the failure and eventually succeed is paramount. Falling down and recovering teaches resilience and responsibility. Too often, we assume that letting a learner fail and then giving them a zero teaches responsibility. We expect the learner to realize their mistake and get it fixed next time... all on their own. Rick Wormeli (@rickwormeli2) described this scenario very well. Imagine I was teaching my daughter to ride a bike this way. We go out to the street. I put her on the bike seat. Holding on to the seat, the starts pedaling. There we are, she's pedaling and weaving, I'm holding on to the seat running with behind her. Then I let go and the she is now on their own. Right way, she crashes. I look down at her and say, 'Well, you fell. I guess you aren't a bike rider. Maybe next time you'll try harder, but this was my scheduled time to work with you. Good luck in the future.' This isn't how it happened. We kept at it over and over until she got it right. Our job as educators is the same. Let them fail and then give them the tools and support to eventually get it right. The whole process is essential. Through it, learners become resilient, successful, and responsible. I like to have content that is online and available for learners to access at any time. I encourage my learners to move ahead if they have the opportunity. This affords everyone several opportunities. For me as a teacher, I have a better understanding of where each student is in the curriculum. If they already know something, they are able to move past it faster. If they are struggling, it is more clearly shown because they tend to be behind. This allows me to focus my energies on where it is most needed at that time.
For my learners, they benefit as well. Clearly, they get more personalized attention as I pointed out previously. They also get the satisfaction of having a say in their learning. They have some control over the pace. They can also work when it is more convenient for them. I've had students work on things over the weekend and holiday so they could free up class time for other needs. Allowing for this acceleration also gives learners the opportunity to work on more challenging and rewarding projects. Gaining advanced skills leads to advanced work. There are things a teacher needs to think about when taking on content that is online and self-paced. Too often I see teachers who treat it like personal free time for themselves. The thinking is that the students are responsible for everything and they will take care of their learning. "I have already done my job by putting it online. It's up to the student to do the work now. I can sit back and relax." Nothing could be farther from the truth. After creating the content, comes the real work. Online curriculum does not replace teachers, it just changes the nature of their interactions with learners. Teachers have to be constantly monitoring students. Some students take to online content right away and do everything like it was planned. They go through all of the material making sure they have learned it. They work through each exercise and activity until it is done well. They stay on pace to get things done in a timely manner. These students tend to be the exception, not the rule. Before beginning a new online unit, it is advisable to work with the entire class together through the first part of the content. Do it just like you would in class if it wasn't online. Doing this helps set the expectations for what is to come. It also helps students get used to the formatting and conventions in this particular unit of study. Even if the same person makes all of the various courses you use, there will be differences in them. Help students learn how to navigate these differences. Use your formative assessments to gauge the progress of all of the learners. Your objective right now is to make sure 100% of your learners have mastered the first part of the unit before you "turn them loose". Be sure to set them up for success. After turning them loose, teachers need to constantly monitor progress. At least once a day check in with each student to make sure they are moving along timely. I have a spreadsheet that I use to quickly see where each learner is and the progress they are making. This also helps me assess their pace. Making sure learners move through the content at an appropriate pace is one thing. Making sure they are mastering the material as they go is another. Constant and timely feedback on the work they are doing, formative assessments, and one-on-one conversations are critical. I am at my busiest when my classes are doing these self-paced activities. Over time, the students learn how to self-monitor their learning. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes years for most of them. But the time is well spent. Before beginning a self paced lesson, teachers must still answer (in detail) those four critical questions:
Providing self-paced online content is a great way to differentiate and give students a voice in their learning. I think it is an important part of education and growing up. Done right, the benefits are astronomical and prepare every student for the life ahead of them after graduation. My classes finished unpacking the standards related to their upcoming project. I am very proud of the work they did. The insight and responsibility shown is impressive. Before we began, I narrowed the scope for the learners. They have never done this before, so sifting through all of the standards was going to be too hard for now. I decided to scaffold it and select relevant standards fort them. To start with, each team was given a single standard from either the state standards for the course or the ISTE Standards for Students. Each team accessed a shared Google Doc that allowed them to input their responses and see what the other teams are working on as well. I took pieces from several places to put this together for the students. These are the instructions I gave them.
For any standard to be completed and accepted, we had to have 100% agreement with all students in both classes. This took some work. Inside one class it was easy enough. A show of hands would do it. If someone had any issue at all, they were allowed to speak and say what they had to say. Every voice is important. Very rarely was something brought up that did not make it into the final document. Once one class approved it, the next class had to approve it as well. It took several days, but we got everyone through the process. Over and over, the discussion focused on if the class felt the targets were clear, completely addressed the standard, and every student could be assessed by it in the upcoming project. The final document is attached below. With this, we are about to start writing the rubrics now. I'm very excited. It is rare that learners get the opportunity to have this much input into their learning. They are very excited because they know that they should do well on the project and truly learn what they should. There is no doubt because the learners are setting the target and setting how it will be evaluated. There is clarity for everyone. While this did take several hours of valuable project time, I feel that we actually gained time in the process. The learners really took a hard look at what the standards mean and what they need to do to show mastery. In that, they have already started learning at a depth that no lecture, report, or homework assignment can reach. Next stop, the rubrics...
On the tail of letting my learners write the class policies, I gave them an even larger stake in their learning today. Today, my classes started unpacking the standards in preparation to write their own rubrics. That's not a typo. I am going to let them write the rubrics that I will be using to assess their work in class. To put this all in perspective, I am tired of arguing over interpretations of rubrics and the quality of their work. No matter how many times I stress that my feedback is to help them get better, I still have a number of students who don't see eye to eye with me. I say they still have a way to go and they will dig their heels in saying that they have met the standard and should be allowed to move on. I don't just take what they turn in and that is all there is to it. Learners must meet at least the minimum standards before moving on. I care more about learning than calendars and GPA. For the last several years, I have had a shift in the types of learners coming into my class. For years, if I assigned something for homework, almost every one of them did it and did it correctly. Working with 1 or 2 stragglers was easy and infrequent. That isn't the case now. The numbers in our program have grown to necessitate having two other teachers. The popularity and growth have come with an increase in the number of learners who are not sure why they signed up for the course (sometimes for the fourth year in a row). It has been my mission to reach these particular learners and get them engaged. If they are going to come in my room, they are darned well going to enjoy it, have fun, and learn. All means all. This year, instead of coming up with all of the project directions and rubrics, I am turning the tables. They learners are going to unpack the standards. They are going to determine what it means to "demonstrate responsibility for shared group and individual work tasks," or "complete tasks with the highest standards to ensure quality products and services." Let's not forget "demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property." Every learner will agree to all of the learning targets before moving on. There is no reason for all of us to see eye to eye. Today, I started with my 8th period class. I went over the Unpacking Document. Part of the discussion was looking up the Depth of Knowledge Chart and Blooms Taxonomy. That's right. My engineering students are learning about pedagogy. After explaining the chart, I gave each team a standard to use in relation to the project. Everyone had a different standard. The chart was shared in a Google Doc that they are all working on. Each team creates a new line. As the teams finish, I give them feedback on getting their standard better "unpacked". It is exciting to see them really working on it. Tomorrow, we will finish the standards with the other classes. Everyone will have to come to complete agreement on all of the learning targets before moving on. When we get done unpacking, we'll start diving into the rubrics. I'll keep you posted. Here is a copy of the Unpacking document we are using.
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About me & this blogThis blog is for things related to my class, PL, coaching, or just teaching in general. You can follow me on Twitter @myakSTEM Archives
June 2021
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