If I…
Just a little taste from our Principal’s presentation he gave to our school’s staff at the start of this year.
If I…
- Modify my lessons to improve them so that they are more effective than in the past
- Seek feedback from my students
- Analyse and evaluate their work in a manner that changes my own emphasis, repertoire, and timing
- Visit or observe other adults as they teach
- Share the work of my students with colleagues for feedback, suggestions and critiques
- Visit other schools or attend particular workshops or seminars or read professional literature on aspects of teaching
- Welcome visitors with experience and expertise to observe and provide feedback to me on my classroom practice
- Develop a yearly individualised professional development plan focused on classroom changes to improve student learning
- Systemic evaluation of my teaching tied to individual, grade/department, and school wide goals
Then…
I am going to become a better teacher
becoming leaders in learning
Recently I have been working on creating a set of lessons to help staff explicitly teach Art Costa’s 16 Habits of Mind to our students.
The Habits of mind is one of the five Dimensions of Learning that drives our school’s pedagogical framework.
Through the research involved in coming up with resources for these lessons I stumbled across the following extract fromTowards a Quantum Mind by Marilyn Ferguson.
We can rationalize the failures of the past
or we can learn from them.We can complain about the troubling inadequacies of the present
or we can face them.We can talk and dream about the glorious schools of the future
or we can create them.If we want children to learn to think and read,
we must show them thoughtful people eager to take in new information.If we want them to be brave and resourceful,
let them see us risking a new idea or finding a way.If we want them to be loyal, patriotic, and responsible,
let us show them that we can be true to our deepest principles.If we want new and better schools,
we will have to be new and better people.
Marilyn Ferguson’s extract is probably best suited for teachers than students. Unfortunately this may not make it past the ruthless cutting floor that is a document on my desktop titled hom-stuff.txt where I am dumping lesson ideas and resources.
But all is not lost… I can definitely see how this extract can be used to help promote discussion and challenge our thinking.
My favourite two lines from this extract are:
We can complain about the troubling inadequacies of the present
or we can face them.We can talk and dream about the glorious schools of the future
or we can create them.
Too often I find we get bogged down in complaining about the lack of resources and time in education. Instead, we should be facing these issues head on and actively be seeking solutions.
We also spend a lot of time discussing what education will be like in the future, but how many of us are making this reality happen?
I liked the extract so much that I created a short (1 minute) video to show staff. I even managed to get some help with a little audio from a young Steve Jobs - watch video here, or on youTube.
The message I am trying to get across is WE CAN change education by continually improve our own practices and being prepared to courageously take risks and seek new and better solutions.
The only way for us to become leaders in learning is to become the learners we want our students to be.
the work life balance
Many people I know complain about how they can’t achieve a “work life balance”. This too is something that I am constantly struggling with, especially since the arrival of my twin boys 12 months ago.
I think that sometimes we have to accept that this utopia is not always achievable, but the pursuit for this seemingly impossible happiness is more about the journey you take then wondering when you will arrive at the destination.
Finding the correct balance is a complex dynamic that is different for each individual, and more importantly, actually doing something to improve this balance is harder than simply talking about your inability to achieve it.
I recently read the following quote on a staff members office wall:
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said:
“Man.
Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;
the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;
he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
Needless to say I liked what I read. Not only did I like it, it really struck a chord with me. I found myself saying out loud to no one in particular: “he’s right.”
It also reminded me of a story I read a while ago about the fisherman and the businessman:
There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village. As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish.
The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”
The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”
“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.
“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.
The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”
The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink and we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”
The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.
“I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”
The fisherman continues, “And after that?”
The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”
The fisherman asks, “And after that?”
The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”
The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”
I guess the simple fact here is that we seem to spend our whole life working hard in the pursuit for the simple pleasures that one day we may possible achieve. When we could have some of these things right now, if we just re-adjust our priorities a little.
Sources:
I am not sure of the origins of the fisherman story, but here is where I shamelessly stole the above version:
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2010/09/08/
the-fisherman-and-the-businessman/
Picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/68134711@N00/3981263864
we can…
wide reading is the sole vehicle for developing vocabulary
Here’s the logic…
If students were to spend 25 minutes a day reading at a rate of 200 words per minute for 200 days out of the year, they would encounter a million words of text annually. According to our estimates, with this amount of reading, children will encounter between 15,000 and 30,000 unfamiliar words. If 1 in 20 of these words is learned, the yearly gain in vocabulary will be between 750 and 1,500 words. Nagy and Herman (1987 p.26)
Researchers estimate that of every 100 unknown words we encounter during reading, approximately 5 will be learned for their meaning (Nagy et al., 1987)
Although this appears to be a small proportion, students who encounter 100 new words each day and red every day of the week could learn 35 words each week and almost 2,000 words each year.
class of 2011
Today, like most schools around this time, we had our Year 12 Graduation.
As the students and their proud parents entered the hall for the ceremony I started feeling envious just like I always seem to be at these occasions. I am jealous that it’s not me graduating all over again, like I did in 1995 from James Nash State High in Gympie.
I always think to myself “If only I knew then what I know now. I would have done so much differently?” Such is the power of hindsight. Of course it is impossible to articulate this to a young adult who has just finished high school. I know that it would have been a wasted conversation had anyone had it with me in ’95. I wasn’t thinking about changing the world, being a better person or taking the path less travelled. I was only thinking about schoolies and the fun we were going to have over the Christmas break, because not only were we adults, we were also bullet proof. Unfortunately, in hindsight we were neither.
Creating Sustainable Change - Middle School Conference 2011
This is a presentation that I gave at the 2011 Middle Years of Schooling Association Conference on the Gold Coast. This presentation looks at how to create sustainable change within a school by using the diffusion of innovations as a framework. It focuses on getting the teachers involved in the process of deciding on the relevance of the innovation and implementing the innovation.
to change is to question
If you stop me in the street and ask me about what I am passionate about I would simply answer in one word: ‘change’
I would then bore you for about an hour with a rant about what I believe change really means and how we too often willingly accept something without ever questioning it, simply because that is always the way it has been. [see my previous post about Transformational Learning]
Spending your life looking for ways you can change the world is not very practical. But you can focus on the things that you can control. It’s these things that you should question if change is possible or required.
Here is a recent example.
My wife and I were travelling with Miss 2-and-a-half. We stopped for lunch at a well known sandwich bar in a shopping centre. We each ordered a sandwich, a drink and Miss 2-and-a-half had the ‘kids special’.
We sat down and enjoyed our lovely lunch no more than 3 metres from where we purchased it. Once finished I bundled up all the rubbish and threw it in the bin. I was amazed at the amount of packaging that was used and it’s very short lifespan. It literally filled a fairly large plastic bag!!
We didn’t need each sandwich individually wrapped in paper and then placed in a paper bag. We also didn’t need that paper bag put inside a plastic bag just to carry it the 3 metres to where we were eating.
I saw it as nothing more than useless waste. Could I change this? Could I change the amount of waste I create by simply thinking about what packaging I am using?
After spending a weekend away with my wife and Miss 2-and-a-half, I was taking the rubbish to the bin as we were on our way to check out. During a two night stay we managed to create 2 shopping bags worth of rubbish that was going to end up on a tip somewhere.
Time to change.
Be the change you want to see in the world - Mahatma Gandhi
I can initiate, implement and reflect upon this change simply because I control how much packaging I require and I control how much waste I create. I am going to start actively questioning how much packaging I use and how much waste I create.
Don’t be mistaken in thinking that this post is about an individual’s plight to save the world one unused plastic bag at a time, because it is not. This post is about seeing something in your life, something that you control and seeing a need to change it. This could be at work or at home. It could be to do with your health, how much time you spend with your family or how you react to a situation.
If you can control it, you can change it. The question is, should you change it? And that question is the whole reason behind this post. You don’t know if you need to change something you control unless you actively question if change is possibly or required. The act of questioning is the important catalyst behind all change.
will kindle burn paper
Ok, so it took me 20 minutes and that was the wittiest title I could come up with.
Sorry.
This blog post is not “about” the Kindle, if you would like to know more about the actual device I suggest heading over to Amazon and read all about it - Amazon.com/Kindle
A while ago, about the time the Kindle was released in Australia actually, I purchased an Amazon Kindle. It was really the first eReader I ever took any notice of and quickly bought it before I spent too much time researching and got paralysed by choice. I received the Kindle very promptly and was impressed with the packaging - don’t roll your eyes at me!
After reading a couple of novels on the Kindle, downloading a reference book, playing with all the features and even pulling it out on a train I have come up with the following…
Firstly, I love it. I really enjoy reading from the electronic ink screen and I found that I actually seem to read faster! I can hold the device in one hand, and thanks to it having “next page” buttons on both sides I can swap hands at anytime. (Something I noticed you can’t do with the Kobo because it only has one navigation button - too bad if you want to hold it in your left hand).
The Whispernet technology that allows the device to connect to the Amazon store anywhere you have 3G connectivity means acquiring the latest novel is a breeze. I realised just how good this was when I was heading into the city on a crowded train. About half way in I finished the novel I was reading on the Kindle and had no other reading material on the device. Not a problem, I simply turned on the wireless and connected to the Amazon Kindle store. Within 2 minutes I had located the next book in the series, paid for it (account connected directly to my credit card), downloaded it to the device and was reading again. Joy!
Educationally this device is great. Students love to engage with it, and engaging with it means reading! I haven’t shown a teacher who has not said the same thing. An english teacher commented how the eReaders can help to overcome ”fat book anxiety”. This occurs when a student looks at the physical size of a novel and immediately believes that they can’t possibly read a something that big.
The ability to increase the size of the text and have it read to you via the built in text-to-speech means that this device would be an asset for learning support.
For novels, or anything that you read in a linear fashion, this device is great. However…
I used the Kindle to purchased a reference book I wish to use in the near future. I did this for two reasons, firstly, it was half the price and secondly, I could download it in 2 minutes as apposed to waiting for 10 to 15 days for it to be delivered. Usually with a reference book I scan the table of contents and have a quick flick through it looking out for interesting looking images and headings. This was not such an easy task to do on the Kindle. I actually fond the whole process a little “clunky”.
Sure, I can navigate to the table of contents and jump to the relevant sections from there. Also I can highlight sections of the text and clip it and I can add bookmarks and notes. However, it still wasn’t as good as a physical text book that allows me to add post-it notes and scraps of paper to relevant sections.
Why I don’t think eReaders will “replace” paper:
Data decay. I don’t just mean the decay of digital media over time, I am also talking about what happens to data on older platforms when new technologies come out. What is going to happen to the hundreds of texts that I could potentially own on the Kindle when something better and newer comes out? Will I have to transfer it over to the newer platform?
Think about that time you found an old box in the back of the garage. When you finally open the box and blow all the dust off it you realise it is your grandma’s childhood books, wow.
Jump ahead 63 years from now. Will your grandchildren come across a box with a kindle, ipad and a sony reader in it? Will the devices still work? Will the media still be supported?
In summary, I like this device. It has brought back the love of reading that I had previously forgotten. I see value in using it in the classroom and look forward to the years ahead and seeing how far these devices can take digital media and connectivity. For now though, I’ll be sticking to hard copies for reference books.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37989307@N08/395730497
the paralysis of choice
Fair to say I am a big fan of TED. I was even fortunate enough to score an invite to the independent TEDx event held in Brisbane earlier this year (which I blogged about).
My brother-in-law and I were recently discussing the TED Talk presented by Barry Schwartz about “the paradox of choice“. Schwartz identified issues with living in a world were we have too many choices. I see many correlations between what he was saying and the challenges we sometimes face as educators who are integrating ICT devices into the classroom.
“With so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all” Barry Schwartz
When making a decision about a certain ICT device it is easy to get struck by the “paralysisof choice”. There are just too many choices when it comes to mobile phones, digital cameras, MP3 players etc…
The important thing to remember is that eLearning is NOT about the device. It is also NOT about how good the device is. It is about what you are doing with the device, how well that device integrates into the classroom and how the device improves student outcomes.
Don’t get paralysed by choice - It really doesn’t matter that much. Don’t be afraid of choosing a device that is not the “best device”, be more afraid of not choosing one at all.
Here are my simple steps to choosing an ICT device.
- Do some research.
- Choose a device that falls within your budget and is easy to use.
- Tell yourself “this is a good device because it does what I want it to do, but it is not the best”. Because quite frankly there is probably a better device out there. Or if there isn’t now, there will be soon.
- Forget about the specifications of the device and concentrate on how you are using it to improve student outcomes
If you are at peace with the fact that you haven’t got the best device then you won’t be surprised or disappointed when you come across a better device (and you will).
Integrating digital technologies into the classroom is not about the device, it is about the pedagogy.
